27b In High School DxD (No ExE) Part Two
After a week of discussions with John Hansen and his two Fallen Angels, Azazel couldn't believe what he had been told. It wasn't that it was outrageous, it was because he couldn't believe that the Grigori organization that he had founded could survive without him leading them.
Azazel had to borrow a copied Devil cell phone and sent a few inquiries to some discreet contacts, only to have the story confirmed. Kokabiel had been reined in instead of rampaging and Shemhazei was a much better leader.
The organization was actually thriving and the members were happier instead of floundering around like it had been when he ran it and he tried to juggle too many things to keep the situation stable. He would never admit that it was because he was lazy, hated all the paperwork, and avoided responsibility like it was the plague.
“I think I'm going to announce my retirement.” Azazel suddenly said, making a decision.
“Lord Azazel, is that wise?” Mittelt asked and tried to hide her surprise behind her normal angry look. It didn't work, because her old boss gave her an understanding smile.
“I believe so.” Azazel said and patted her shoulder. “It will also explain my... ahem... disappearance.”
John chuckled. “I did explain I overreacted when you were freaking out.”
Azazel nodded, because he knew pride was one of his major sins. His best suit had been ruined and it didn't matter if it could be cleaned and fixed afterwards. “I don't know how to explain you two.”
“That's easy. We can pass them off as magical clones.” John offered and the three Fallen Angels gave him curious looks. “Everyone knows I can recreate certain beings after the Exhibition Ratings Game. I can even tell everyone the truth and say that in my grief over losing Mittelt that I had to bring back my first lover.”
Mittlet blushed and it was a genuine one. “J-John, I... I don't know what I was thinking. Why wouldn't I call you after such a fantastic date?”
“I'd say Raynare gave us a few orders that we didn't like or could refuse.” Kalawarner said.
“I did as well.” Azazel said and Mittelt frowned. “After your report, I asked you to hang back and let me handle talking to him until I sent you a counter-order. I couldn't let anyone interfere in the negotiations and you wouldn't defy me, so that would explain why you didn't contact him, despite his many messages begging you to respond.”
“I was asking, not begging.” John defended himself.
Azazel smirked at him. “I read the messages, just like Mittelt did. We both came to the same conclusion.”
“You're too clingy.” Mittelt said with a bit of a scowl on her face. She wasn't angry, though. In fact, she was flattered that someone wanted her that badly. Azazel was right, though. She wouldn't defy his orders and would have left John hanging in the wind.
“I like clingy.” Kalawarner said and hugged her newest lover as she nuzzled his neck.
John opened his mouth to respond, then sighed. “I was trying to contact you about some very important events going on in the area and you didn't answer me. I was getting desperate and you kept ignoring my requests to meet.”
Azazel reached over and patted John's shoulder. “Did you tell the Devils that you're the one that's been protecting their summoners from the rogue exorcists?”
John shook his head. “They didn't ask how I gained the images of the crime scenes they knew about. Why would I tell them I got rid of 22 murderers, healed the victims, and erased the memories and cleaned up the evidence?”
Azazel chuckled. “How many strays have you converted and fixed so far?”
“Surprisingly, four of them. I don't know why they keep coming here.” John said, a little frustrated. “Is it the territory or is there a stray devil lure or something? I can't find anything with either magic or technology.”
“I think it's because there are no reports of stray devil deaths from here.” Mittelt said after a moment, her keen mind focusing in on what the truth could be.
The other three people in the living room stared at her with their mouths open.
“Stop looking so fucking shocked I came up with that, you fucks!” Mittelt said and threw the couch pillows at them.
That started an epic pillow fight that lasted for almost ten minutes. The four of them ran all around the living room and it had them all laughing when it was over. Pillow stuffing had floated through the air and covered half of the room and all of the furniture, too.
“I'm going back to the Grigori.” Azazel said and flopped down on the couch and caused a huge puff of stuffing to explode and it was flung away.
“I thought you said you were going to retire?” Kalawarner asked and sat down as she pulled John down onto her lap and hugged him like he was a teddy bear.
“I am. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop my work or leave all my experiments behind. My role might have been perfunctory; but, I did help in some capacity with my Sacred Gear research.” Azazel admitted and he didn't seem to mind berating himself for not being the best leader.
“I'd like to visit sometime and see some of that, if that's okay?” John asked. He knew better than to demand anything from the ancient being. Asking for access to his private research was a huge thing.
“Of course, my new friend! You did give me my life back.” Azazel said with a smile.
“Technically.” John responded and the three Fallen Angels laughed. “What's so funny?”
“After talking to you and learning about the two different types of magical clones you can create, we know that they all have souls, even if they are copies. You couldn't feed the Dementors by creating generic brain dead people if they didn't.” Azazel said and saw that John was confused. “Even though you grew us in those wonderful birthing and maturation tanks, we still have our souls.”
“It's one of the biggest fears our kind have after falling. Did we still have souls? What happens to us after we die? Do we just go poof or is there an afterlife for sinners like us?” Mittelt asked.
John sat there and looked at them for about thirty seconds before he nodded. “I've inadvertently solved part of your people's existential crisis.”
“You got it.” Azazel said, proudly. “It's going to advance my own research on artificial Sacred Gears by years, if not decades.”
John nodded again and turned slightly in Kalawarner's arms to give her several quick kisses. “My own research should advance as well. I just don't know if I should include Panacea in it.”
Mittelt climbed onto both their laps and kissed John soundly. “Why does her using your harvested genetic material from your son to fertilize lizard-women eggs, weird you out so much?” She asked and then barked a laugh. “Never mind. Just saying it out loud sounds fucking weird!”
Azazel, John, and Kalawarner laughed.
“It just bothered me that I wasn't even asked.” John said with a sigh and snuggled into Kalawarner's purple hair. “Now I have 48 kids I had no hand in creating and my own son is more of a dad to them than I'll ever be, since he's been there since their birth and he's also sleeping with their mothers.”
“That part's not making you envious?” Azazel asked, genuinely curious about his answer.
John shook his head. “I could make hundreds of different women if all I wanted was to sleep with them. Hell, I could create a supremely professional courtesan that would put the highest paid prostitute to shame for not doing her job properly.”
The three Fallen Angels gave him wide eyes at that admission.
John chuckled at their surprised looks. “I once met a member of a galaxy-wide organization that raised their members from birth to become the perfect companions. Some of the rates they charged were astronomical.”
Kalawarner reached up and grabbed his face with both hands. “You have to teach me that!”
John couldn't help but laugh. “You need to wait for your toys to finish first.”
Surprisingly, all three of them wanted a teenaged version of Azazel with a reduced to normal growth rate. Kalawarner and Mittelt because they wanted a longtime boy-toy to play with and Azazel because he wanted an assistant that would understand his thought processes and methods without having to explain them.
It would take a bit of judicious memory editing and copying from an updated magical clone to not give them everything Azazel had in his head, though. They didn't want three more of him running around and wanted three new people that they could pass off as triplets.
“You're going to grow the courtesan the long way?” Mittelt asked.
“It's safer that way, especially here. I'll do the same with my half-giant teacher, too. Panacea and I only just finished successfully experimenting on her biological sample.” John informed them.
“You know, you can't just ignore all of that mess you left behind in the basement.” Azazel suddenly said. “Believe me, I know. It never works. Look at what happened with what I left behind in the Grigori. I slacked off for too long and the whole organization pretty much ran by itself without needing me anymore.”
John opened his mouth to respond and sighed instead. “I'm still not sure why I'm not handling this like I usually do. Normally, I can integrate pretty well into whatever society I drop into and fit in without causing too many ripples. It's kind of my usual operating procedure. This time I'm messing up and doing things that...” He stopped talking when he remembered how he had moved on from the universe with Megan and The Team. I think that sword screwed up a lot more than I thought it did.
Mittelt pet his hair before she kissed him tenderly at the almost scared look on his face. “We'll help you if you need it, now that my regrown ex-boss says we can.”
Azazel chuckled at that and nodded agreement.
“I do have a few things that I need to correct, now that I've had some time to think about things.” John admitted.
“Are you talking about the Sitri thing?” Azazel asked and John nodded. “Send a text to Sona and tell her you overreacted. Barely any time has passed out there, so there shouldn't be too much fallout from what happened.” He smirked at John. “If you're lucky.”
John took out his Devil cell phone and checked it, seeing nothing. He nodded and kissed Mittelt and Kalawarner and both of them let him out of their embraces as he stood. “Thank you for listening.”
“I'd make a joke about us being a captive audience, except you've already told us to leave whenever we want to.” Azazel said and glanced over at the lab area. “Which I'll do in a year or two.”
Kalawarner and Mittelt giggled at him geeking out over the new tech to play with.
“I'll make a shipping container when you're ready to leave and I'll expand it on the inside and fill it with what you want to take with you.” John promised and walked over to the door. He gave them a smile before he stepped out and closed the door.
“So, are we knocking him out and robbing him when he's not expecting it?” Mittelt asked as soon as she felt that he wasn't listening. She would never know that everywhere was constantly monitored.
“Or are we going to brainwash him into making more of these growing and maturation tanks to make more and more Fallen to boost our ranks?” Kalawarner asked.
Azazel gave them pointed looks and laughed. “We are going to be exactly what he doesn't expect and will stay his friends without betraying him.”
Both women stared at him in surprise.
“I know, I know! It's not our normal procedure to do that with an asset that doesn't want to join us. That's exactly why it's going to work.” Azazel said, smugly. “He has been unnecessarily putting the entire weight of this world and its inhabitants on his shoulders. He believes, quite wrongly, that he's responsible for what everyone does here and has to do something about it.”
“For someone that claims to be so smart, he's pretty stupid to do that.” Mittelt said.
“He doesn't claim to be smart.” Kalawarner corrected her. “Just experienced.”
“And he's still making lots of mistakes.” Mittelt responded.
“That's human nature.” Azazel said and they nodded. “We'll keep an eye on him and try to keep him on a more pragmatic course of action. If he tries to do anything too outrageous, we'll try to convince him it's a mistake.”
“You mean like offering to make Angels for Heaven to counter the Devils and Fallen Angels he's made for the other two Factions?” Mittelt asked.
“SHHHHH!” Azazel hissed at her and slapped a hand over her mouth. “He hasn't thought of that yet!”
Kalawarner giggled. “I want one just to see if I can make it fall by flirting with them.”
Mittelt laughed and nodded as Azazel shook his head.
“Keep the crazy ideas like that to yourselves, please. He needs either the DNA or to touch one of them to get it, so I doubt he'll have the chance or opportunity. For now, John has given us full access to this lab and we are going to abuse the hell out of it.” Azazel said and both of them nodded. “Let's clean up this mess and then you can help me over at the DNA sequencer.”
Both Kalawarner and Mittelt nodded and the three of them got to work.
*
I went out to the backyard after texting an apology to Sona. She didn't respond, so I spent a few minutes in silence as I listened to Azazel talking. I chuckled at him trying to hide the idea of copying angels from me, since I had that idea almost right away.
I put my Devil cell phone away concentrated on the magical clone of Issei. I closed my eyes and referenced the mental map in my head of the city and found him at home. I put on an invisibility cloak and apparated to the backyard, cast a human reveal spell, and found a woman in the kitchen.
With my first target alone, I apparated out into the ocean and hovered there just above the water. I knew I had to do things this way in order to get someone back on the same world. I reached down and touched the water with my hand and gained a water, then used my power and chose to create the special land of Azkaban Island and the ocean floor rose up and converted into the prison.
It was completely empty and I chose to transfer Issei first from 'out of play' and into the real prison. With that done, I apparated into Issei's room and saw that the clone was on his computer.
“I've made a few mistakes and I'm here to correct them.” I told him.
Issei gave me a sad look before he nodded.
I put a hand on his shoulder and shook my head. “I'm not erasing you or switching you. I'm going to make you his cousin named Hugh and will change your appearance slightly with transfiguration. That way you don't get confused as each other.”
“Just changing my ridiculous hairstyle will do that.” Issei said with a grin.
I chuckled and did that for him, then raised his cheekbones slightly and changed his eye color to blue. With the similarities negated, my power reached into the 'real' Azkaban prison's minimum security wing and a shaky Issei Hyoudou appeared in front of us.
“Have you learned your lesson about not treating women as only sexual objects?” I asked him.
Issei nodded his head so many times that I thought it was going to fall off.
I gave him a half-diluted Phenex Tear potion and his thinness disappeared and he stood up a little straighter. “I just need to add some memories of things while you've been gone.”
“Sure, Hansen.” Issei said and flexed his arms. “I feel like a million bucks!”
That's how much human money that potion costs. I thought and used the Issei Clone's memories of school for the last few weeks and then quickly edited them to fill in the gaps where he was with Rias and her Peerage. I also added him finding a long lost cousin recently and him moving in.
As a last thought, I also checked to make sure Issei's obsession really was reduced and I made the memories of his stay in prison fade into the background, as if he had experienced it years ago or perhaps in a dream. It was the least I could do to make it up to him for just arbitrarily chucking him and his friends into prison.
“HUGH!” Issei exclaimed and lunged at his magical clone and hugged him. “I can't believe I finally found you after all this time!” He said and let him go. “The only way this could get better is if my other childhood friend reappeared and we connected again!”
The newly renamed Hugh smiled. “I doubt Irina is just going to show up out of the blue; but, it'll be nice if she did. She was really cute.”
“Hey! Hands off my pretend waifu!” Issei mock glared at him and they both laughed.
“I'll let you two catch up and I'll see you both at school tomorrow.” I said and left the room. I went downstairs and gave Issei's mother the same long lost cousin memories and created a briefcase of money for allowing her cousin to stay there and for the extra expenses that another mouth to feed was going to cause. It was much more than she would ever need and she was very grateful.
I plucked the location of her husband's work from her head and did a quick pop over to his office and altered his memories, too. Surprisingly, they were both quite happy to have found another Hyoudou family member and made their tiny family that much bigger. I would need to arrange another transfer student identity for him, too.
I sighed at having to contact Sona again for that and the feeling lasted for only a moment, because my phone beeped and I saw that Sona had sent me a text. She wanted to meet. I agreed immediately and said I would meet her anywhere and she just needed to tell me where. She sent the location as the secondary office for the Student Council.
I immediately apparated into the alcove that was just down the hallway in the same building instead of sending a response by text and knocked on the door instead. It opened and her Queen Tsubaki was there, as was the rest of Sona's Peerage. Sona had a pensive look on her face and I didn't ask her what was wrong, considering how I had threatened her and walked away the last time we had met.
“Come in.” Sona said, her voice flat. Tsubaki stepped back to let me in.
I put my phone away and stepped inside the room. Sona pushed the knot and the back wall opened and revealed the expanded space inside. She waved us all through and it shut behind us. No one spoke as we walked across the space to the training area and they all spread out to surround me with Sona squaring off as she faced me.
“If you survive all of our attacks for five minutes, I'll listen to what you have to say.” Sona said.
I knew she wanted to see me beat down and I thought about letting her, then chose to do the smart thing instead. “I refuse to move from this spot.”
Some of the girls gasped in surprise and the rest narrowed their eyes at me, accepting the challenge. Sona nodded and they all moved back, some of them jumping into the air and flying with their bat-like wings to gain some distance.
I was only slightly surprised that none of them had more than two wings, meaning they were all fairly weak in the grand scheme of things, namely the normal power rankings that used pairs of wings as a scale. I didn't move or showed any preparation for what we all new was coming, mostly because I didn't need it.
“You're going to regret hurting our King!” Tsubaki shouted and created a huge standing mirror in front of herself. Her Sacred Gear was called Mirror Alice and it doubled any attack it absorbed and fired it back.
A bright energy beam came from one of the other girls and it lit up the mirror, making it glow, then the beam cut off. A second later, a beam twice the size and strength shot out of the mirror and right towards me. I didn't raise a hand to block it or even looked at it. It hit my chest, a direct hit, and all the girls started to cheer until they saw that it didn't affect me.
“Don't look down on us!” Tsubasa exclaimed and gathered her magic for a different attack and threw it at me.
I didn't do anything in response and stood there as the ball of green magic hit me and nothing happened. That seemed to make them really angry and they all started attacking with various styles of magic. Ice, water, fire, beams, projectiles, and a few other things. Nothing they did mattered.
I stayed calm and kept my eyes on Sona's face for the next four minutes and watched her reactions as I was slammed over and over with her Peerage's best and strongest attacks and they didn't do anything to me.
“Enough!” Sona exclaimed and did an elaborate pose as she called upon her family's magic. A massive Chinese dragon made of water formed around her, then another formed, then another. When there were six of them, she fired them.
Not at me, though. They combined into a single massive dragon and hit Tsubaki's Mirror Alice and it absorbed the attack, shattered, then reformed into a large mirror and shot a water dragon that was twice as strong and fast right at me. I didn't look at it as I continued to stare at Sona's face.
The massive attack hit me and the immense force of the water tore at the area around me and caused a huge explosion of pressurized water to blow out. All of the Peerage members braced and managed to not be blown away from the backlash, only to have disbelieving looks as the water flowed away and revealed me standing there completely dry and unhurt.
“H-h-how?” Tsubaki asked, her voice shaky. She had never seen anyone survive her King's ultimate attack.
Instead of answering, I reached into my shirt and pulled out the pendant I wore. I slipped it off my neck and held it out, then threw it at Sona. She easily caught it and stared at the personal protection amulet. She could feel both the magic and the energy it was giving off.
“Your protective ward scheme.” Sona said into the silence. She had felt it enough to distinguish it.
“Combined with a personal energy shield. It took me a very long time to work out how to miniaturize it and to get it to work without blowing up a city block.” I said and made a bit of a show of it as I pretended to take another one out of my pocket and I put it over my neck and tucked it inside my shirt.
That move gained everyone's attention and it was hard to figure out what the expression was on their faces. Sona gave me a pointed look and then looked down at the thing in her hands. We could all see that she wanted it and was fighting with herself to not toss it back to me, since she knew I had another one.
“Flip it over.” I prompted and made the decision for her. Sona did so and caught her breath.
“What is it?” Tsubaki asked and floated down to land beside her King.
“It's engraved.” Sona said and looked close to crying as the rest of her Peerage gathered around her. “To my future wife. Anyone can live in a house. It's family that makes it a home.”
“Aww.” A lot of the girls said and they quickly swarmed their King and hugged her.
“I sincerely apologize for how I acted earlier, Sona. I was out of line saying those things, even if they were true. I shouldn't have brought them up like I did and ruined any chance that Serafall might have accepted our families joining together.” I said and she nodded. “As an apology...”
The whole group turned when I motioned behind them and they saw I had dropped off all of the crates of potions. They made shocked sounds and quickly swarmed the large stacks of crates.
“Ten thousand of each for a total of thirty thousand potions.” I said and all of them looked very happy. “There's one more thing, too.”
Sona looked away from the stacks of crates and her Peerage to look at me. I handed her the report on the Wiggenweld Potion. That was the name of the minor healing potion that dealt with small things and it was also the counter to the Draught of Living Death. She quickly read through it and the effects it had, then she gasped and looked up from the last line of the report.
“It hasn't been tested, obviously. We don't have access to anyone that has the Sleeping Disease.” I explained. “However, the disease has the same resulting condition that the potion normally counters, so with a little luck, a single dose should wake up whomever is suffering from it.”
“J-John, this... this is...” Sona hugged the report to her modest chest.
“I hope this shows you that I'm sorry for how I sabotaged the negotiations before they could begin.”
Sona nodded and walked over to me. She gave me a searching look and then stepped close and kissed me. I didn't take any liberties as I kissed her back, using only my mouth, and I didn't try to hug her or held her to stop her from getting away. It was a sign of trust and Sona broke the kiss with a satisfied look on her face, because I had earned her approval once more.
I gave her a slight bow and walked out of the expanded space without saying anything. Once I was outside the building, I concentrated on the second member of The Perverted Trio and apparated to his backyard. Another human revealing spell let me know the bald guy was having supper with his family and I would have to wait to replace him with the original.
I went to the last one, glasses guy, and he was in the backyard. No one else was home, so the switch back was seamless and I gave him the clone's memories while he was in prison and I transfigured the clone into someone else. He of course chose to look like a model and ran off with a briefcase of money to 'get all the cuties' for himself.
It made me and the original laugh, then the original begged for me to change him, too. I gave him some muscles after the Phenex Tear potion, an extra inch down there, then I erased what just happened from his mind and apparated away before he could pledge eternal servitude to me. He had learned his lesson, just like the original Issei did and his prison time was now little more than a dream.
That reminded me to contact Hugh and have him tell Rias about Issei returning from the dead. She had four more Pawn Pieces left, so she could add Issei to her Peerage if she wanted. That is, assuming she still wanted to recruit people to her Peerage, now that she didn't have Riser to deal with.
I went back to switch out the bald guy and he was in his room. I gave him and his magical clone the same treatments and I apparated the clone out of the house with a suitcase of money. The original didn't ask me for anything, so I asked him if he wanted anything changed. He shook his head and started tossing out his porn collection.
“I can do that for you.” I said and stored the things he pointed to. He kept a few things that were expensive and he went to bed to get a good night's sleep. I apologized for overreacting and doing what I did, and he just shrugged.
After I checked to make sure he wasn't going to do something drastic by delving deep into his mind, I removed the memories of what I just did, fixed the prison time to be only a faint memory, and apparated to the backyard of the house.
I made a special note for Eye to keep an eye on both of them and to set up constant surveillance. I wouldn't let anything bad happen to them from now on. Going to prison was bad enough and I couldn't make it up to them for that. Not really.
I entered my house through the patio doors and walked into the living room. After a moment's contemplation, I went down the stairs and stopped at the door to the basement. I took a deep breath and let it out, then entered. Running away from my problems was never going to solve them, so I had some explaining to do, some apologies to make, and a few more ground rules to set in place.
*
The real Issei was fully welcomed by Rias and her Peerage and they kept Hugh being his magical clone a secret, even from him. Of course, both Rachnara and Akeno were delighted to have yet another toy to tease and play with. The two sadomasochists had quickly become the best of friends and each of them filled a role that the both of them needed for each other. In private, of course.
Rias didn't forgive John for what he said and she wouldn't for a while. He had embarrassed her and Sona with how he acted and for what he had revealed. He was also a Phenex now and she had a very low opinion of them and their family. She would never admit that they felt the same way about her after how she publicly called Riser down to the lowest.
Azazel, Mittelt, Kalawarner, and their three teenager Fallen Angels left the second lab after two years of working on things. John stayed true to his word and gave Azazel copies of the tech he had gotten to work and Azazel sent over everything he had on Sacred Gears and several other projects, including extracting them safely.
It was exactly what John needed to further his research in his arm shield, so the exchange benefited both parties. He did ask for Mittelt and Kalawarner to live with him and gave them the choice, without ordering them.
Although they were members of his Peerage and were benefiting from his training techniques, he didn't want them to think they owed him anything. That was a mistake he was never going to repeat. The two Fallen Angels politely refused and agreed to stay in contact, since they didn't want to ever be considered strays for defying him or ignoring him.
John did not tell them that he removed that drawback from the programming and let them believe that they would mutate if they did voluntarily betray him. He had to keep a few things secret and it also ensured that Azazel couldn't order Mittelt to ignore him again.
The Sitri Clan started using the new potions in their hospitals and clinics and they were extremely cheap for what they did at a fraction of the price of Phenex Tears. They were nowhere near as effective as those prolific potions and that was okay. It relieved some of the pressure on the Phenex Family to produce their product faster and also helped more people for less cost, so everyone was happy.
Of course, the initial gift was quickly used up and the Phenex Family were approached by the Sitri Clan, whom had their hats in their hands and humbly asked to open negotiations to buy more of the revolutionary potions. The public backlash on Serafall Leviathan for denying the first contract between their families had been even more prolific than anyone could have expected.
It was kind of an open secret that she was a siscon, the same as Sirzechs Lucifer was for his sister, Rias Gremory. That wasn't really a problem for most of the Devils, since they did wallow in sin a lot. The problem was that there was no chance for there to ever be an heir for the Sitri Clan if Serafall kept Sona for herself.
Serafall backed off and didn't try to stop her family a second time. She still recommended they deny the clause to have Sona married off as a second wife, mostly because it was a hit to their status in Devil Society. She believed that her sister deserved to be the primary wife and not an add-on after the fact, even after Sona explained why things had to be that way, for her future husband's legitimacy.
With Sona's approval, she would be married to John as his second wife and the negotiations to buy the potions changed to integrating the two families into the business together. After the contract was fully negotiated and signed, that was when Ravel revealed she had worked with John for years to create another source for Phenex Tears and the price could be lowered from astronomical to only outrageous.
All of Devilkind cheered and the Phenex Family would gain immense wealth with a much wider client base with the cheaper price. They all knew it was because of their newest family member and everyone was grateful for his appearance in their lives.
It was another state affair for Sona's wedding and it was another blowout that everyone enjoyed. The two week honeymoon passed before the new couple knew it and they went back to their lives. It was one of the best things for Sona that John didn't demand for her to give up everything she wanted to do.
In fact, he encouraged her and promised to fully fund her Rating Game Training School when she worked out the details and graduated college. Needless to say, Sona fell even deeper in love with him over that. His resources, training equipment, and knowledge would set the bar very high for her expectations of how well her school would be received by the masses.
It would also help showcase the talents of low class Devils and get them noticed by more important people and families. If there was one thing the Devils wanted, it was more entertainment and being popular. More rating game teams meant more rating games, which meant more gambling, drinking, and fun for everyone.
*
Barely two weeks into my second marriage, Ravel had mistaken her day off for a day she could have fun with me. She hadn't noticed Sona going down on me under the blanket as she climbed into bed with us and started making out with me. I tried telling her she wasn't alone and Ravel just laughed and sat on my face to shut me up and put my tongue to better use, or so she claimed.
Ravel flipped the blanket off of me and that was when she saw Sona was sucking on what she was about to suck on herself. The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, then they both shrugged and went at me with reckless abandon. Not surprisingly, we had a lot of fun while having fun together after that.
Early the next morning, I laid in bed with Sona snuggled up to my right side and Ravel cuddled into my left. The two had very contrasting bodies, like night and day, and it was both novel and comforting that the two of them had been so accommodating after the mistake. They hadn't shared my bed at the same time before because they wanted their own separate time with me.
I was perfectly fine with that. There was no reason for us to share everything and both Sona and Ravel agreed with me. Despite being married, we still had our own lives, only we had someone extra to share it with. We modified the rotating sleep schedule to keep everyone happy and we also scheduled in joint days where both Ravel and Sona would share me. They were Devils, after all.
I thought it was great that they occasionally locked each other into lengthy discussions about tactics and movements, both with chess pieces on a chessboard and Evil Pieces during a Ratings Game. They were more alike than either of them had realized and they were becoming great friends, even closer than Sona was with Rias, which surprised everyone but me.
Sona and Rias had been friends since childhood and they were close, except Sona had a lot more in common with Ravel, whom was also a woman who was just as driven and passionate about what she wanted to do with her life and strove to achieve it. Rias was... not that motivated. Sloth was a sin, too.
I let my mind wander over everything that was going on and everything I had done, been through, and was still going through. I still had to attend school, I still had to produce potions, I still had experiments to do, and I had children to help raise. It was a lot to deal with and it was only going to get more hectic as time went on.
I also knew that Sona's parents were eagerly waiting for her to finish college this year and to get pregnant, hopefully with a boy. That was the great thing about college. It was based on course credits and she had amassed a bunch of them in her spare time and was finishing out her electives while she ran the Student Council for the High School part of Kuoh Academy.
As my mind drifted off to sleep and my consciousness hovered between being awake and being asleep, I realized something very important. It was so important that my dozing mind immediately snapped into full awareness and my eyes widened as my breathing stopped.
It had been a very long time since I had been using my powers as they were intended.
I was a planeswalker. My main power was collecting lands to gain new spells and abilities. The last land I had intentionally collected was the water I assimilated to convert into a physical Azkaban Prison on this world. That was it. Yes, really.
I went over every place I had been since arriving here on this world and there was nothing. I had been so dependent on my ability automatically gathering lands that I wasn't even paying attention as I went to different places. That made me realize I had been all over Kuoh, had a stopover in Italy, walked along the Great Wall of China, and travelled to dozens of lands in the Underworld.
I hadn't gained any of them. Not one. The only new one I had was the water I had intentionally collected and then converted into Azkaban Prison. It was still there, actually. I had been so distracted by everything that I hadn't dismissed the specialty land, which meant it was there just off the coast of Japan and was a huge hazard to the shipping lanes and private boats.
When was the last time I had travelled on the worlds I visited to gather lands? Either normal ones or specialty ones? I couldn't remember. I tried to go through my Halls of Memory and skimmed over the things I had done, only to find that I hadn't gained any lands in a very long time.
I started to kick myself mentally, because I had missed dozens of what could have been specialty lands with funky abilities and hundreds of normal lands. Yes, that's right. It was only hundreds of normal lands. I used to gain tens of thousands in each universe I visited and the last bunch hadn't given me anything at all.
I used to make a point to travel around on each planet, even if it was only within the single solar system I was relegated to, and I usually gathered as many lands as possible. The last bunch of worlds had pretty much made me stay immobile and I didn't even think about travelling or going out to gather up what I could. How stupid was that? How much of my potential had I wasted?
I started breathing again and I resolved to solve that problem. What the hell was wrong with me that I had forgotten an essential part of my own powers?
That thought made me remember that I had asked Eye to check the Japanese space agency to see if they were going to launch anything for us to piggyback our stuff on and I had never followed up on it. That was months ago and it had completely slipped my mind. I hadn't even tried to create a Firefly or put my normal harvesters and stealth satellite network into space around the planet.
I closed my eyes and couldn't get to sleep. My mind was too hyped up over how messed up everything was. I had intentionally nerfed myself and cut off one of my main abilities that gained me powers and abilities. The last few worlds themselves should have given me some outrageous spells and abilities and I had completely missed them.
I took in a huge breath into my lungs and slowly let it out with an exaggerated sigh. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I am sooo stupid!
Sona's hand moved up from my chest and cupped my face. She was still asleep and seemed to detect my distress and had unknowingly moved to comfort me. That touched me deeply and I kissed her palm to thank her. She let out a soft sigh and her hand moved back to rest on my chest.
I laid there for the rest of the morning, wide awake, and waited for when my wives would wake officially and start their day. I wasn't a jerk, so I didn't get up or disturbed their sleep, even if I could have started cooking them breakfast. I would just have to cheat when it was time and then the three of us could get on with our day.
With what I just realized, it was going to be one hell of a day, that was for sure. After school. I couldn't disappoint Sona by skipping again. She looked damned cute when she glared at me, though.
Maybe I should comment about having more important things to do instead of school and let her glare at me, then tease her by saying I meant her? I asked myself. She might look even cuter when she blushes and glares at the same time.
While I made breakfast, I did make that comment and Sona totally looked cute at being tricked. Ravel giggled and hugged her, beaming a smile at me for including her as well.
*
No one in Kuoh noticed the new hangar that appeared at the edge of town next to the airport that afternoon. It had previously been an empty lot that was recently purchased by the Hansen Corporation for an obscene amount of money.
The Japanese Flight Authority Association suddenly had plane registries and flight plans logged that they hadn't entered themselves. Everything was legal, technically, and they were more than happy with the monetary donations made to let them upgrade their computers and monitoring equipment, which would help them deal with the constantly moving planes in and out of the country.
Only a few citizens that lived near the airport looked up when they heard the scream of a harrier's jet engine and pointed at the odd sight as it flew and seamlessly merged with the current flight plans of the other outgoing planes. A lot more people inside the airport also noticed and wished they had a private military grade plane to take off whenever they wanted.
The workers in the control tower weren't nervous as the fully registered plane easily slotted into their tightly packed schedule and it left almost as soon as it was up for departure. They silently wished that all of the planes they had to handle were as smooth as that and without any problems.
Surprisingly, as soon as the plane was out of sight, almost all of them realized they weren't that interested in the new plane and went about their day. It was only two people on the ground that weren't so easily distracted. They were members of two different factions and were there specifically to monitor the comings and goings of anything odd in the area and had reported the occurrence.
*
I sighed with relief as the Firefly settled into high orbit and Eye beeped at me. “Yeah, buddy. It's been way too long since we've seen a sight like this.”
“Beep?” Eye asked me.
“We have a lot of work to do and the both of us are way out of practice doing it.” I said and patted his modified Dragon Drone. “I'm sorry the Japanese Space Agency wouldn't speed up their launch window. I wasn't going to wait another four months after realizing how much I had been ignoring my abilities.”
“Boop.” Eye agreed.
“You're right. I'll stop harping on something I can't go back and change.” I said and patted the wall of the cockpit. “All right, Andromeda. Open up the cargo hold and drop off the magically protected stealth satellites and harvesters. There's a lot of crap around here to be cleaned up and there's no time like the present to get started.”
“Sure thing, John.” Andromeda said and opened her expanded cargo hold. She dropped a hundred prepared satellites and fifty harvesters.
There was a lot of debris in orbit and it was very dangerous for the existing satellites. The normal space programs from different countries had stalled out over the last few years because of the growing dangers from the debris. We only knew that because Eye finally had the chance to remotely hack into NASA. It was through thirty different spoofed locations and cut-offs and he was still almost caught. He had a great time with it, though.
I sat there and watched the cargo spread out and I could see various minor impacts on their shields. A good amount of the new satellites were programmed to replace most of the older satellites that were already in orbit and would assume their functions while also feeding Eye and myself any relevant data.
It was a subtle way to spy on the people spying on other people and Eye always got a kick out of using their own tactics against them. We probably wouldn't do anything with the information, unless it was an assassination target or something bad. Those we would handle without prejudice.
“Eye? Make sure the lasers attenuate through the atmosphere and can't be seen. We don't want to give ourselves away with something so simple.” I said.
Eye beeped at me and would have rolled his eyes if he had any, which made me chuckle.
“I'm sorry for assuming you didn't do it already, buddy. I'll stop questioning your competence.” I told him and he beeped smugly at me, which made me laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I know you're the best.”
“We're empty, John.” Andromeda said and closed her cargo hatch.
“Then we're popping over to the moon to drop off a few factories and for me to gain tons of colorless lands, to Mars to do the same thing, and we can drop communication relays and things along the way to the asteroid belt. We need to get those Crybaby mapper factories deployed and a few automated mining ships sent after a few of the more dangerous asteroids.”
“Right away, John. Hold on for boost.” Andromeda said and I leaned back into the flight couch as she hit the thrusters and we shot out of orbit like a rocket. “It feels great to let loose like this.”
“I agree.” I said and patted the wall again.
“Beep?” Eye asked.
“You got it. I'm adding a Stargate on the moon and Mars to start a local network with the one I have back at the house.” I said and then thought about it. “Since were already out here, we might as well stop at a few of the best planets and some of the accessible moons as well. We can start terraforming them to make them suitable for people to live there.”
“Beep.” Eye commented.
“That's a great idea, buddy! We could offer a nice converted moon around Saturn to Devil Society on behalf of the Phenex Family and our popularity would skyrocket even more than it already is.” I said.
“Are you sure concentrating all your efforts locally is a good idea?” Andromeda asked.
“Unfortunately, I doubt there is going to be anything outside the local solar system for us to find. I have a feeling that the extra-strong supernatural nature of this universe that's solely concentrated on Earth is going to hamper any other beings from developing independently on any other world.”
“That's going to suck if there's nothing out there for us to find.” Andromeda said, sadly.
“Well, there's always a hope that I'm wrong and we'll find tons of earth-like planets.” I said and Eye beeped at me. “Right, buddy. I've been wrong a lot lately. Maybe I'm wrong about us being alone and there's some kind of life out there, too.”
“Beep.” Eye said, hopefully.
“You're right. We'll find out over the next few months as the automated mappers do their work.” I said as we approached the moon and flew around the edge to get us out of line of sight to Earth.
Andromeda landed at the perfect spot and I set up an environmental dome farm and added a Stargate inside and set the address. I dropped off a few ground harvesters to gather the loose dirt and dust to make bricks and paperweights out of them that I would give out as gifts to a few members of the scientific community. They loved stuff like that.
After that was started, we went to Mars and dropped shielded stealth satellite relays along the way. Once we landed on the planet, I covered a good portion of the surface with atmospheric condensers and terraforming factories, many more than were normally needed, because I wanted it changed as quickly as possible. Instead of years, it should only take a few months to make Mars a viable place to live.
I added another Stargate inside an environmental dome buried under the surface to hide it and set the address, then we flew out to the small asteroid belt in the middle of the solar system to start deploying the assets needed to work on mining them for resources.
It took a lot longer to achieve what I wanted, since each thing produced also needed to have the proper magical protections to stop it from being detected by all of the supernatural beings in this universe. It was definitely worth the extra effort to keep everything hidden, even if there was a lot to do before I had to be home to make supper for my wives.
I was also looking forward to comparing the ore and rare mineral deposits to the previous times I had done the same thing. Would they be different, considering the more supernatural nature of the universe? Would there even be anything besides dirt for us to discover? Only time would tell and it was a little exciting to find out.
*
Sona didn't feel guilty as she and her Peerage abused the time dilated and expanded dimensional space behind their secondary office. She hadn't told Rias about the training facilities, the advanced equipment, or about the luxurious accommodations inside. She knew her lazy friend would abuse it all the time without asking for permission first and neither Sona nor her Peerage would have any peace or alone time if anyone else knew about it.
John had made the space for her and her Peerage to use and she wouldn't denigrate such a precious gift. Plus, it was nice to take a 15 minute break occasionally during the day and spend a week relaxing and enjoying herself. The paperwork she brought with her could be easily handled and it was wonderful when she returned to the Student Council office with all of her work done for the day.
That let her handle the various problems that popped up in the school quite easily. Normally, she had to ignore them for the most part because she and her Peerage were so busy handling everything else as well as all of the paperwork for running the school, managing all the clubs, and allocating funding for equipment, trips, and maintenance.
Sona also noticed how much happier John had been lately. She didn't question it, mostly because she believed it was because he was happily married to her and Ravel. That thought made her blush slightly, because she loved that he spent time alone with just her and also let her indulge with a bit of debauchery with Ravel.
The short cute blonde was such an antithesis to herself, tall and dark haired, that making Ravel squeal with pleasure made Sona adore her fellow wife even more than she did because of Ravel's intelligence and tactical abilities. When she remembered their last romp in bed together with John, it gave her a warm and cozy feeling deep inside, because she knew Ravel felt the same way about her.
“You really need to thank John for all of this.” Momo said as she settled into the Hot Springs beside her King. “Ohhhh, this water is sinful after a good workout.”
Tsubasa laughed and slipped into the water beside her friend. “That's appropriate, don't you think? We're devils!”
That comment made them all giggle and laugh.
“It's like magic with how good this feels.” Sona's Queen Tsubaki said and sat beside her King. “Have you sent any of it off for testing?”
“Right after I gained access.” Sona admitted, a bit smugly.
“And what was the result?” One of the other girls asked from beside the nearby pool.
“It has minor healing abilities and isn't reproducible by either alchemy or magic. At the most it can be diluted by adding purified water, which in turn dilutes the healing it can do, defeating the point of trying to have more of it.” Sona told them.
“Is it like those great potions he makes?” Momo asked, curious. “I know he can make a lot in a short time... well, real time that is.”
Sona smiled because her Peerage member understood the time still passed, it was only compressed. “Surprisingly, no. Both compounds are fundamentally different.”
“Wh-what? How is that possible?” Her Queen asked, surprised. “He has two different solutions for healing and they're not mixed with Phenex Tears? That's unheard of!”
Sona nodded. “It is and I'm not going to pester him about it. He might be my husband; but, I'm not going to demand that he share all of his secrets with me. We have eternity to spend together and I'm sure that after a few years, he'll open up about everything he can do.”
“Or you figure it out on your own.” Tsubaki said and put an arm over her shoulders.
Sona gave her a knowing look and smiled.
The large group of girls were quiet for several minutes before Momo spoke up again. “So, are we counting this extra time against our birthdays? How would that work, anyway?”
“Rather than trying to keep track of your visits individually, just record how many real-time hours you've spent inside the space. Four 15 minute breaks is an hour and each hour is a month of compressed time, so after 12 hours, that's an additional year added to your age.” Sona explained.
“Oh! That makes things much simpler. Thanks, Sona!” Momo said and gave her a quick hug.
“It eases all of our worries, too.” Tsubaki said and kissed Sona's cheek. “Thank you for taking care of us.”
Sona blushed at the praise and had a difficult time fighting it off. Her Peerage members noticed and didn't tease her about it, to her relief. She was more personable and accepting of affection since she started seeing John and none of her Peerage wanted her to close herself off again. She was still stoic and stern when doing business; but, in private she was much more approachable and fun to hang out with. Their own private resort helped a lot with that, too.
“I've been meaning to ask about something.” One of the other girls said and pulled off her bikini and slipped into the Hot Springs beside Sona's Queen.
“Go ahead.” Sona said and gave her Knight her attention.
“How big is he down there?” Tomoe asked, teasingly. “Have you kissed it yet?”
Her questions had all the girls in the Peerage make surprised sounds and the last few rushed over to the Hot Springs to witness Sona's blushing and embarrassed face, only to see their King smiling and there was no blush at all. In fact, she looked downright smug.
“I'll have you know I've kissed it, licked it, sucked it, jerked it, played with it, and I've felt his silky hardness inside every hole I have in my body.” Sona said, proudly. She did not tell them how big he was, though.
All of the girls gasped and one of them fainted from shock. Tsubaki quickly fished the poor girl out of the water and woke her up to make sure she wasn't drowning. The girl sputtered and stared at her King, disbelief on her face.
“Shall I list all of the positions and deviant acts we've performed?” Sona asked and didn't wait for them to answer before she proceeded to tell her Peerage all about the things she and her husband got up to in the bedroom. She left out joining Ravel in bed, since that was only for her, Ravel, and John to know and enjoy.
By the time she was done, all of the girls had nosebleeds and had fainted at least twice each, even her Queen. That made Sona very proud to have successfully rubbed it in their faces about their previous teasing of her being ignorant of all the sex acts they had told her about before.
Turnabout is fair play. Sona thought and smiled wickedly at the shocked looks on their faces.
*
A week after my trip to space, I dropped the last ward stone at the end of the airport's final runway and nodded to Eye. “That's the last of them, buddy. Start up the main reactor and magical generator we planted in the underground bunker at the center of town. I'll make the final magical connection and activate the detection ward scheme as soon as the magical circuit completes.”
“Beep.” Eye agreed and he sent the signal.
It had taken six months of compressed time and a lot of hard work getting the damn things to work in tandem instead of just individually. Funnily enough, they still had the same restrictions as they did back in the Buffy universe. I couldn't put them on any property that the owner didn't give me permission for.
So, I cheated. I wore an electrical power company uniform and knocked on every door and asked for permission to check and protect their property. It worked and they all agreed. With the ward stones all set up and functional, they could become a fully encompassing grid of detection for all the supernatural things in the town. I had to set aside an entire server room of computers and processing power to handle the data and Eye couldn't have been happier.
The satellite network also let him keep an eye on things from above, too. It wasn't as versatile as the roaming stealth drones; but, it gave him a much better view of the entire city. Eye's Overwatch Program could find and highlight any inconsistencies and would let us know everything supernatural that was going on in the entire town, either above ground or below it. Combined with the electronic surveillance already in place, it gave us the best coverage we could hope for.
I felt the slight flow of magic roll over me and had to smile as the grid came online. “I'd say that got everyone's attention.” I said with a soft laugh and activated the detection and protection wards.
Eye beeped as the data flowed in through his connection to the server farm and he showed me a hologram of several identified supernatural beings freaking out. Two of them were Youkai, an Oni and a Kitsune respectively, one was a vampire in a basement that died a quick death, and the two Fallen Angels stationed at the abandoned church.
My Devil cell phone rang and I took it out. “Hi, Mittelt.”
“JOHN! What the hell was that?” Mittelt yelled into my ear.
“I'm not sure what you're talking about. Can you be more specific?” I asked, teasingly.
“Do you want me to break my foot by kicking your ass?” Mittelt growled.
“Okay, okay. Just a second.” I said with a laugh and nodded to Eye. “Eye, send her the unlock codes for her tablet. Mittelt, it's a monitoring program under Administration Tools.”
Eye beeped at me and Mittelt went quiet for almost a full minute.
“John.” Mittelt whispered. “What... what is this?”
“It's the first successful deployment of a complete magic detection system. The entire town is warded and everything under the completed compound ward can be watched without having to go to each house or business to cast the same detection spells over and over to see what's going on.” I explained.
“John, you... this is... I need to call Azazel.” Mittelt said and hung up.
I shook my head at her reaction and hung up as well, then I changed the display to text and sent a text to Sona. “Send her the codes, too. She's either going to love this or berate me for violating everyone's privacy, even if I gained their permission first.”
“Boop!” Eye exclaimed.
“HA! You want to bet that she's going to do both? You're on.” I said. “If you win, I'll start working on a bigger drone you can interface with that should let you fly like a Firefly.”
“Beeeeep.” Eye moaned and I held in my laugh at how he loved being able to move around even more freely than he already was.
“It's going to take a lot of engineering and magic to get things small enough to perform...” I stopped talking when my cell phone beeped with a text. It was from Sona and she did exactly as Eye had bet. “Dammit.”
Eye beeped a laugh and showed me a hologram of a smug face.
“Yeah, yeah. Give me a few days before you start pestering me about it.” I grumbled and sent Sona a kissy-face emoji and put the phone away. “Let's go visit the two new stray devils we just found and tell them the good news about us being able to fix them.”
“Beep?” Eye asked me.
“I doubt they'll refuse.” I said and cast a notice-me-not on myself and Eye and put a hand on him as we apparated to the first set of coordinates.
A bladed claw from a giant mantis swished through the air and I pulled Eye out of the way as the notice-me-not spell was dispelled.
“Okay, maybe they will. I shouldn't judge them as being good people before being changed.” I said and pulled out a stun rifle and unloaded several shots at the fast-moving creature that was a mutated devil. As it ran around me looking to attack, one of the bolts of blue energy I shot at it clipped its back leg. It let out an odd sound before it crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
“Beep.” Eye said and opened his bottom tray and dropped a portkey onto the thing. It swirled and disappeared as it was sent to a holding cell in the backyard of my house.
“I know.” I said and patted him. “Show me the next spot and the coordinates.”
Eye did and I held onto him and apparated there. It was a half-bear and half-spider thing with a male torso mixed in. Its hands weren't paws like they should be and were more like lobster claws.
“Damn, that's one hell of a mutation. You really indulged yourself after escaping your King, didn't you?” I asked the creature.
“ROOOWWWRRRRR!” The thing roared and rushed at me. It couldn't even talk normally.
I shot it a few times and it dropped to the ground while it skidded to a stop at my feet. I sighed as I looked down at the mutated damage it had suffered. “I think we need to regress you back to a baby to forget everything you've done.”
The thing snored as if agreeing with me and Eye dropped another portkey onto it.
“With both secured, send the info to Sona and...” I stopped when my cell phone beeped at me. I took it out and read the text.
'I want it. Your buddy Azazel.'
I sighed and typed. 'Of course you want something I literally just finished making.'
'It's the best time to ask. You'll forget otherwise.' Azazel sent back.
I shook my head. 'I'll send you the details and you'll see it's not as simple as giving you a copy.'
'That's fine. I'm patient.' Azazel responded and then sent a face emoji with the tongue stuck out.
I chuckled at the blatant lie and nodded to Eye. “Go ahead and send him the documents on how to set up the compound enchantment. It should keep him occupied for a while, even if he can't make the ward stones himself.”
“Boop?” Eye asked and sent it off.
“He doesn't have the newest power reactor or the latest magical generator we came up with. He only has the prototypes and they can't handle the load.”
“Beep.” Eye commented.
“I suppose he could figure out how to boost them, assuming he combines one of his artificial gears with the magical generator. It would have to be compatible, though.” I said as I thought about it. “Either a lightning based one or maybe a copy of a Twice Critical to double the output? Personally, I think that would be a waste of a gear, artificial or not.”
Eye beeped in agreement with me and I touched him before I apparated us back home to the backyard. I opened the shed and levitated the two unconscious stray devils out from the holding cells and brought them into the house and down into the basement. There was work to be done to try and help the poor souls.
Panacea came out of her apartment and saw the two creatures. She motioned to the mantis one and I nodded as I set it onto a modified medical bio-bed and then I put the bear spider hybrid into a secured cell. I stunned it again, just in case.
“Eye, keep watch on that Oni on the other side of town. I have a feeling it's not here to spy like the kitsune by the shopping district.” I said and went over to Panacea.
“Bring them here if you can. Or stable copies at least. I'd like to touch as many different species as possible.” Panacea said and started to examine the mantis thing.
“Ignoring how dirty that sounds, is it you or your power talking?” I asked and put on medical gloves.
“Yes.” Panacea said and let her fingers slide over the head of the creature. “The brain has regressed as the mutation raged. It's pretty much running on instincts right now. Kill, kill, kill, eat, kill.”
“How the hell did it come to Kuoh if it can't think properly?” I asked, surprised.
“It probably followed a previous mutation's pheromone trail.” Panacea said and trailed her fingertips down the creature's carapace. “Hmm. I'm detecting... yes, I'm sure this used to be a woman. There's no original DNA left, however. It's all mutated. I can't even find a trace of anything human.”
I stood there and wasn't sure what to say, then did. “How the hell do we regress someone that doesn't have a base DNA to regress them to?”
Panacea saw my confused face and smirked at me. “We can try and recover the DNA in the mutated piece or we can substitute someone else's DNA to use instead.”
I gave her a raised eyebrow at the suggestions and she chuckled.
“What will the Devils think if we hand over a brand new pureblooded Devil baby to the Domestic Affairs Minister of the Underworld and they check the DNA to find out who the father is?” Panacea asked and her smile turned downright evil.
I had to laugh at that. “They'll either make the family pay for causing a baby to be lost or make them a ward of the state and disgrace the family for losing the baby in the first place.”
“Either way, the family that made this creature will lose.” Panacea said with satisfaction.
“Also, girls can inherit the heirship of Devil families.” I said suggestively.
Panacea barked a laugh. “I don't feel so bad about having to regress someone back to being a baby if we can arrange for the original Evil Piece owner's fortune to go to the 'new' heir.”
“I don't feel so bad about it, either.” I agreed and we went to work. A little payback to the bastards making people into unwilling slaves and then into monsters, was always a good thing.
*
School went on as normal, even with my lunch breaks spread between my wives and Peerage members. It was kind of fun having a normal routine where I shared my experiences with those I cared about. It was a little surprising that Kalawarner was ingratiating herself right in there, too. I knew it was on orders from Azazel and I didn't really care, mostly because she was enthusiastic about it.
Sona did a lot of paperwork to arrange everything and I was very grateful to her for that, so I started to share my programming expertise with her and also introduced her to Eye, whom she immediately adored for his skills and abilities. Her praise knocked him offline for several minutes, which made me laugh.
I made sure Eye isolated the different magical registrations of supernatural beings, just so we would know who was who when they showed up. I also tried to upgrade the satellite network with the same programming. It didn't work, mostly because they weren't installed with the same ward scheme as the ward stones or worked in the same capacity. They also weren't physically or magically connected.
So, I had to do things the long way. Targeted scanning with an array of upgraded scanners combined with detection spells. It was going to be a painstakingly long process to scour the entire planet for supernatural beings and neither of us were looking forward to it. It was the only way to permanently deal with the vampires, though.
First things first, wresting control of their financial stranglehold on specific markets across the globe, especially in Europe. Buying them out wouldn't work for all of it, so I had to track them down first and then either force them to sell or get rid of them. It wasn't like I could grow an undead vampire in a maturation... chamber... son of a bitch! I can grow Borg! Why can't I grow vampires?
A year and a half of compressed time later, I failed... and then remembered my wards that destroyed vampires and undead flesh when they were crossed or already inside. I cursed myself for being so stupid and had to set up another lab in the outskirts of the city to start my experiments again. If I could subvert their entire race into behaving instead of killing them all, I would do that instead.
Another year of compressed time later, it worked. I successfully grew 'dead flesh' and created a vampire. They were dead, however. Like, completely dead. Cybernetics didn't work, either. There was no life in them and even creating a magical clone of a vampire and copying everything over inside of the grown body didn't do anything.
Dammit! I hated having to give up on something to go back to the basic plan of 'kill everything'.
*
It only took a month in real time for Eye to do everything financially possible to cripple the vampires and then I went all murder-hobo on their race. Well, I say race when they were just animated corpses. All of my experiments proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. They didn't have any life in them and they didn't have a soul.
How they made women pregnant was a mystery, unless you attribute it to magic, since certain magics here could do anything you could imagine. That made me consider my own propensity to make women pregnant only when they wanted it and I had to admit that my hypothesis was correct. Magic was definitely involved, especially since I was cursed to not produce any children that could inherit my powers.
The surprising part of wiping out the vampires was the sheer number of Dhampirs they had, which were half-vampire and half-human hybrids. They became full vampires after they died and lived a normal human life until then. Well, normal in the sense that they were considered third-class citizens by their own people, especially the females. They were essentially slaves and treated just as badly.
Most of them were pretty unresponsive when I rescued them and it was going to take a lot of work to ensure they were taken care of. There was no more room in my basement, thanks to all of the lizard-women that now lived there, so I had to make somewhere else for the Dhampirs to live.
My son had fully embraced his role as the clan husband for the lizard-women, even if he hadn't started out that way, and they had many children together thanks to Panacea fixing any genetic problems that popped up. They were all happy and I didn't object to whatever they did, since they were their own people.
It was the same with the grown magical clones of Gohan and Videl. Both of them and their children could live their lives wherever they wanted and could do whatever they wanted. After Vedal was a success, we didn't bring any more Saiyans into the world. None of the full Saiyans we had access to were viable and that branch of the research was abandoned.
I went to my new lab's building where the vampire experiments were an utter failure and dissolved everything before I expanded the basement into what I needed. I made it into a huge underground base that had everything anyone could need to live, to relax, and to do what they wanted.
It wasn't a surprise that none of the Dhampirs wanted to go outside in the daylight, considering they were raised to fear the sun like normal vampires. It only weakened and didn't harm them, however. They didn't care and stayed inside anyway.
I also didn't give them a high index of compressed time like I had with the basement under the house and Sona's secondary office. The Dhampirs had a hard enough time with their existence to have to live through it even faster than everyone else, which I soon learned was a huge problem.
When I checked the time compression ratio in my basement and discussed things with Panacea, we figured out that 24 years a day was a ridiculous time compression. Why? Because after a year of living inside the dimensional space, 8,760 years would have passed. Yes, really. That's 365 times 24, or three quarters of a Devil's extended lifespan used up in only a normal year.
Like I said, it was ridiculous.
After more work and calculations, I managed to reduce the time compression to be only a month a day. When I checked with Sona to share the numbers we had come up with, she said she was okay with her second office being the way it was. A week for 15 minutes was really helping her and her Peerage, since they weren't staying inside constantly like most of my people were. So, I left the option with her to change it whenever she wanted.
Since I wanted to keep our relationship positive and not bogged down with tons of secrets, I told her what I did to the vampires and what I did with their half-breed children. Sona was silent for quite some time and I thought she wasn't going to say anything, then she started yelling right in my face how stupid I was and then berated me for wiping out an entire species of beings, even if they were vampires.
I let her go on until she started running out of reasons for me to be targeted and hunted down by the three factions to be arrested or killed. That was when I had Eye send her the details of what we did, especially my experiments with trying to grow them new bodies and finding out they were just magically animated corpses.
I also had Eye show her that we had ensured that none of the companies that the vampires used to control would go out of business, keeping all of their workers alive and happy, and that I had saved their half-vampire children that were slaves and gave them an entire complex to live where they had a psychiatrist to help work through their emotional problems.
That revelation shocked Sona enough to actually read the reports in full and she saw exactly how much of the world's economy that we now controlled. She almost choked when I expressly pointed out that the 'we' included her and Ravel and that all those fortunes and multi-million dollar companies could be easily used as resources for her own school when she was ready to launch it.
I barely felt her tackling me and then she was riding me desperately and begged me to get her pregnant. When I tried to make her see reason, she claimed she would spend the day inside her second office with her family. They would happily welcome the new Sitri Heir and she could get back to work the next real time day without having anyone else being impeded by her impending motherhood.
I dove into her mind and discovered that she actually wanted this, so I agreed and she was pregnant an hour later. What? I wasn't going to disappoint her and only get her knocked up after one load. We had to have fun doing it, too. I had promised myself to not disappoint her again and I did my best to keep that promise.
*
The leaders of the Three Factions were surprisingly okay with not having any of the vampire factions around anymore. They were also kind of impressed that the entire operation had only taken a month to get rid of them all. Only Azazel had voiced concern over how thoroughly complete it had been and that it was all done without their knowledge or consent.
There was still the occasional vampire that would pop up in different areas around the world and they would be quickly hunted down and dealt with by various groups that had hunted them for years. Knowing they didn't have souls and really were undead, had really made everyone else quite relieved about wiping them all out and removing such a huge threat to all the factions and not just the humans.
The leadership of three factions also greeted the Sitri Clan's announcement of a new heir with hidden surprise, especially since a sad Serafall Leviathan had sat at the side of the room and remained quiet. They all knew that was two new heirs for two different and very important Pillar families and they were both fathered by a single man.
As the heads of the three factions discussed what that could mean for the future of the Devil race, no one noticed the slight blush on Grayfia's face as she stood behind her husband and King, Sirzechs Lucifer.
If anyone had asked her, Grayfia would have freely admitted that she had been intrigued by John Hansen's previous boast to her, since she had assumed it was only a boast and a fantastic pick-up line to use on a female Devil. The problem she now had was that she had solid proof that John was completely honest with her and it wasn't a boast at all.
If Grayfia wanted another child, he could guarantee that she had one. Immediately. No one asked how he had arranged for Sona to give birth in a single day and no one really cared. The tests proved the handsome boy was a pureblood devil of the Sitri Clan and that was all that mattered. That he also had the clan's inherited affinity with water magic really had the Pillar families talking.
Grayfia did her best to not let her desires show and kept her face in the same stoic visage that everyone was used to seeing. If they had looked under her maid skirt however, they would have seen that her panties were quite damp and several specific muscles down there twitched with eagerness.
Guaranteeing a birth was sometimes a huge turn-on for a normal woman. For a Devil? It was the best aphrodisiac in the world. That John had also delivered an unknown pureblood devil baby to Sirzechs, whom just so happened to be the daughter of a very prominent Pillar Family, made the intriguing man that much more appealing. He also refused to accept the ransom and donated it to the Sitri Medical Facility in the capitol.
“I wish to meet John Hansen.” Michael the Arch-Angel suddenly declared and cut off the discussion about birth rates.
“No!” Azazel gasped and everyone in the room turned to stare at him, even the leader of his own faction, Shemhazei. “Ah, I mean, he's very busy and...”
“You are in contact with him?” Sirzechs asked and narrowed his eyes at the Fallen Angel.
Azazel knew he needed to defuse this quickly. “No, no. I did meet with him once and we talked for a while. He had a lot of things going on, which is why I knew he was busy. I have texted him a time or two as I tried to get that new powerful ward scheme from him.”
That made Sirzechs smile. “Yes, it's quite impressive, isn't it? I've already negotiated with the Sitri Clan for a setup like it for the Gremory Estate here in the Underworld.”
“How much was it?” Ezekiel the Angel asked.
“Two mid-strength Phenex Tears.” Sirzechs said and everyone around the table were shocked.
“You're kidding!” Azazel exclaimed. Now I know why John said he couldn't just hand it over!
“The materials have to be custom made and magically charged for each area. A personally built AI-controlled computer system needs to be programmed and adapted to the terrain, then it has to be installed in its own heavily warded bunker. Lastly, the individual ward stones have to be set up all around the periphery of the property and inside the various buildings and lands.” Sirzechs said and felt pride at how surprised his colleagues were.
It really is as involved as the documents he sent me revealed. Azazel thought, surprised. I thought he was inflating how much work it was to make for me to feel bad about begging for it.
“Did you say all the buildings and lands?” Michael asked, his voice level despite his shock.
Sirzechs nodded. “The Gremory lands are about half the size of the Kuoh Territory and has only about a third of the buildings, so it shouldn't take as long to set up.”
The room was quiet as they thought about what it could mean. Grayfia lightly tapped her King's shoulder and slipped him the recently gifted datapad for them to get used to using it.
“Thank you, Grayfia.” Sirzechs said and quickly flipped through several options and then sent the data to the table display he arranged to have installed. The hologram of the entire town of Kuoh appeared above the conference table and nearly everyone gasped. It also showed several things that most of the occupants of the room didn't know were there in the town, like two Oni and a kitsune.
Azazel silently cursed as two Fallen Angels and several Grigori members also appeared at the abandoned church, revealing the surveillance mission. At the same time, the members of the Heaven Faction stared with squinted eyes at the desecration of a church. It didn't matter that it had been abandoned years ago, it was still holy land and had been defiled by their Fallen brethren.
“As you can see, the controllers of the Kuoh territory have a real-time monitoring capability of their area. This detects any supernatural being within its borders and gives their coordinates...” Sirzechs paused when a new contact appeared near the docks and the warehouses there. “It seems there's a new stray devil in town. Grayfia, if you could go there and deal with it before Rias and her Peerage need to?”
Before the maid could do more than nod, another contact appeared right beside the stray devil and everyone stared at the name that popped up beside it. John Hansen.
“How?” Someone asked.
“Either he's constantly monitoring it himself...” Grayfia started to say as the stray devil's signal disappeared. A few seconds later, John disappeared, too. “...or he can feel the detection when it happens and deals with it as soon as they show up.”
“I assumed he was strong after seeing his Peerage members perform so well in Rias' ratings game.” Sirzechs whispered. “I never thought he could take out a stray devil by himself in only seconds.”
Since the room was so quiet, everyone heard him.
“I believe that's why he refused to join either Rias Gremory's or Sona Sitri's Peerages. They couldn't afford him.” Azazel commented and nearly everyone nodded. His eyes went to Grayfia and then to her King. “I'm starting to suspect you might not be able to afford him, either.”
“Because he has his own Peerage?” Sirzechs asked.
“No.” Azazel said and smiled. “Because you don't have any mutation pieces to support him.”
Everyone in the room turned to stare at him again.
“I know I couldn't afford him if I somehow had any Evil Pieces, even if he was open to the prospect.” Azazel admitted. “He resurrected two of my lowest Fallen Angels and raised them in power from only two wings to six wings in only six months. Whatever he does to power up, I doubt he's only doing it to the people he brings into his Peerage.”
A few of them nodded and leaned back in their chairs. They had all seen or heard about Ravel's Peerage and they were all very strong. She wouldn't be entering the Ratings Games until after the birth of her son, however. Her mother Lady Phenex was over the moon with delight about spoiling the little devil as soon as he was out of the womb.
“What do you suspect his power level is?” Sirzechs asked, curious as to what the Fallen Angel would say. Would he downplay it or exaggerate it?
Azazel tapped his chin as he thought about it. He knew they were testing him, since he was the researcher for his faction and would have the best guess. “Honestly, I don't think he fits into our categories.”
Sounds of disbelief rang around the room.
“I think you need to explain that.” Michael said, his voice stern.
Azazel chuckled at the Arch-Angel's failed attempt at intimidation. “It's simple, really. He easily defeated me in seconds when I was caught up in a berserk rage and he didn't even have to power up or call upon any special magic.”
All of their mouths dropped open at his words and Azazel barely hid his smile at fooling them by being obscure about John's abilities. The man had used a plasma weapon and then a nuke to kill him and Azazel was definitely not telling them that John could easily create clean fusion bombs and could wipe them all out in seconds. All of them. He was very glad that his friend had wisely chosen not to.
“I'm sure that if he was given an actual challenge that he could perform even better or more outrageously.” Azazel said and slowly looked around the room and locked eyes with each of the others. “Please, do not give him a reason to.”
Luckily, everyone nodded and he relaxed.
“Sirzechs, make the arrangements for me to meet Mister Hansen next week. I'll bring a more relaxed retinue since a strong front shouldn't be needed for a private meeting.” Michael said and ignored his second in command's huff of annoyance. There was a time and a place for things like that and meeting a potential asset was not the time to be confrontational.
Azazel opened his mouth to try and convince them it was a bad idea and felt a hand on his arm. He turned and saw the stern look on Shemhazei and closed his mouth. It was a bit late to change their minds with the hologram of an entire town hovering above the table in front of them. Such a tool was too versatile to ignore, especially for the Angels with how they had a difficult time monitoring all of their churches.
The meeting quickly went back to the things they talked about during their normal monthly get-together and Azazel let his eyes drift to the hologram. He was the only one that saw the two Oni's disappear. Before he could point out that John hadn't been there to deal with them, Mittelt's red dot disappeared from the church and reappeared at John's house. A moment later, it went inside and disappeared again as it crossed into the protection wards.
I have to message her about her visits. Azazel thought and wondered if he could have her convince John it was a bad idea to talk to the Angels. His eyes went to Michael and he somehow knew he would bring the big guns when he met with John, just for the distraction she would be. He really wanted to be there as well to see Gabriel's massive breasts in person once more.
*
It was Monday just before lunch when the teacher finished teaching an enlightening class on the intricacies of the Japanese Government and the door to the classroom opened. Whomever it was had timed it perfectly because the door finished opening as the bell rang to end the official class period and the teacher couldn't berate them for disrupting her class.
Everyone turned their heads to look at the opened door and stared as Rias Gremory stepped into view. Most of the class made surprised sounds, especially the previously nicknamed Perverted Trio. No one said anything about that, mostly because some of their concerning behavior was acceptable in certain circumstances, like when one of the two Great Beauties of Kuoh Academy showed up.
“Mister Hansen, I'd like to speak to you in private.” Rias said and looked like she was having a difficult time not frowning at me. “Alone.” She added and then sighed at the glare Aika gave her. “Please.”
I reached out and touched Aika's shoulder from behind, since my desk was behind hers, and she turned her head to nod at me. I nodded back because she had silently accepted the change to our plans for lunch. I stood and then bent down to give her a quick kiss, making the other girls in the classroom envious. She still wore the tiara I had given her and they all knew that she was never taking it off. Ever.
Rias looked relieved as I walked across the classroom towards her. She stepped back out of the room and waited until I was beside her before she started walking. I didn't bother asking where we were going, since she always retreated back to the ORC clubhouse to conduct business.
It didn't take long before we arrived and entered the building and went up to the floor where the official meeting room was. Thankfully, she had dispensed with the lit candles in the middle of the day, which probably saved her a bit of money and a lot of time with cleaning up after them. That is, assuming she didn't use magic.
“Akeno!” I fake exclaimed when I saw the second Great Beauty of Kuoh Academy sitting on one of the couches. “You don't text... you don't call...”
Akeno blushed in embarrassment and looked away from me. “J-John, you're married and...”
“JOHN!” Rachnara yelled and burst through a hidden trap door in the ceiling, cutting off Akeno's lame excuses. Her large half-spider body dropped down and her long legs easily caught her heavy weight before she skittered right over to me and gave me a deep kiss as she hugged me tightly. Both Akeno and Rias made oddly distressed sounds at the public display of affection.
I broke the kiss and saw the teasing and amused look on her face. It made me chuckle and I gave her a normal kiss for making things awkward for Akeno. “It's nice to see you again, Rachnara.”
“Of course it is. I'm wonderful.” Rachnara said and let me go. “Hugh's out running a few errands, so I hope you can stay for a while to meet him.”
“Aika's let me out of her grip for today, so I can stay until lunch is over.” I told her.
“Great!” Rachnara almost shouted and took my hand to bring me over to the couch opposite of Akeno. She pushed me down onto it and skittered around behind it to lay her spider half down and propped her human half over the back of the couch and hugged me from behind. She giggled as she rested her huge breasts mostly on top of my head and also partially on either side. The shocked looks on the faces of Akeno and Rias let me know why she did it.
“You're lucky Hugh and Issei don't mind you carrying on like this.” I said and she laughed, which did wonderful things to her massive chest. It jiggled enticingly and her pillowy softness hugged my head at the same time. “I can see why they like this so much.” I said and patted her hands that hugged my chest. “Thank you for sharing it with me, Rachnara.”
Rachnara's hands slid up and her thumbs caressed the cheeks of my face, clearly showing me genuine affection. “You're welcome, John.”
I thought about staying there for a while and enjoying Rachnara's special cuddles. After a full 60 seconds of silent contemplation and feeling her warmth and gentle caresses, I chose to move things along instead of only wallowing in her comforting embrace.
“I assume I was brought here for a reason other than to enjoy Rachnara's tenderness?” I asked and felt Rachnara's muffled chuckles through her slightly shifting breasts.
Rias almost jerked when my voice broke the silence. “Um. Yes. Yes, there was a reason.”
I sat there and stared at her and wondered if she would actually tell me without having to prompt her again. Thankfully, Akeno was more on the ball than Rias was and elbowed her friend in the side. Rias let out a squawk at the hit and glared at Akeno, only to blush when her friend motioned towards me.
“Right... well... um...” Rias stammered and looked embarrassed.
“You forgot what it was, didn't you?” I asked and she blushed to a deep red.
“No, I know what the reason was. I just can't remember the wording.” Rias admitted.
“Why didn't Sirzechs-sama send an official document with the request like he was supposed to?” Akeno asked.
“He wanted me to visit in person and we talked for a bit. He told me what he wanted me to tell John and then we talked for about half an hour before I left.” Rias explained and made Akeno sigh.
“You can call Grayfia and see if she can remember what the request was.” Rachnara suggested.
“That's a great idea!” Rias exclaimed and quickly did something with a small ritual circle using the Gremory Clan's emblem and then turned away from us and talked furiously under her breath for several minutes into the small magic circle she held in her hand.
When the spell ended, Rias turned back to us with a strained smile on her face and still looked a little embarrassed, probably because Grayfia berated her for being forgetful. A magic circle appeared across the room in the corner and glowed. Some sprinkly lights and a quick flash later, Grayfia appeared.
“You didn't have to come here right away, Grayfia.” Rias said without any heat behind it.
“It's best to get these things handled as quickly as possible.” Grayfia said and started to walk around Rachnara, only to pause when she saw me. Her face went slightly red as she licked her lips, then her eyes went down to my lap and back to my face. Surprisingly, she didn't frown at seeing Rachnara's breasts hugging my head.
I patted Rachnara's hands and she kissed the top of my head before she let me go and moved back out of the way. “It's nice to see you again, Lady Lucifuge.”
Grayfia watched as I stood up to walk over to her. Since I was back to my full height of 6 feet, thanks to my time spent in my expanded dimensional space and not regressing my age again, she had to look up a little at me from her own 5 foot 8 inches. The only woman I've met here that was taller than her was Kalawarner at 5 foot 9 inches. She unconsciously licked her lips again and presented her hand to me.
I held in my laugh at the blatant offer and I didn't disappoint her. I accepted her hand and bent over it as I kissed the back of it and not the knuckles, giving her a much better feeling of my lips on her skin than she would normally feel. I didn't try to make her hand tingle with magic, though. I wasn't an idiot.
“I assume you were present when whatever request Satan Lucifer wanted passed on and he chose to relay it through his sister?” I asked her and she nodded.
“The Domestic Affairs Minister was tasked by the leader of the Heaven Faction to arrange a meeting between himself and you this week.” Grayfia informed me.
“Wait, this week?” I asked, a little surprised. “That seems awfully fast for a political leader to clear time from their schedule to meet with someone that's not officially involved in the politics of another faction.”
Grayfia sighed and her eyes darted to Rias sitting on the other couch. “Someone was supposed to talk to you over the weekend to let you know to prepare for it.”
“I tried!” Rias said. “I couldn't find him anywhere and he didn't answer his phone!”
I took out my cell phone and checked the missed calls from the weekend. “You're AnimeBabe96?”
Rias gasped and blushed bright red. “How did you get my phone's username?!?”
“I hacked my Devil cell phone to give me everyone's ID when they call.” I said and Grayfia gave me a very pointed look. “It's the best way for me to keep track of who's who. Since I don't know anyone by that name or recognized the number, I didn't answer it.”
“You don't give out your number to everyone?” Rachnara asked before anyone else could.
“No, I don't. I've only given it to a few people that I actually wanted to talk to.” I said and didn't look over at Akeno, even though everyone in the room knew I should have. Akeno looked pretty sad, too.
“Would you share it with me?” Grayfia asked and her eyes widened slightly at being so bold in front of witnesses before she schooled her face back to the mask she usually wore. “It is for my King's records, in case he needs to contact you again.”
I thought about refusing and teasing her about it, just to make the comment that she would have to visit personally if Sirzechs wanted to message me. She must have seen something on my face because she smiled slightly and held out her phone before I could say anything. I chuckled under my breath as we exchanged numbers and then she tucked her phone away.
“The meeting will be held on Wednesday at 10 in the morning at a neutral location here in Kuoh. The Academy's gymnasium. We would normally hold it in the Underworld and under heavy guard, except Michael decided to not have it be the same confrontational atmosphere as a normal meeting between heads of state.”
That I had to briefly laugh at. It was both insulting to change the format and a little relaxing to not have an official meeting. Grayfia completely understood my laugh and nodded, because she had attended a lot of very important meetings, both official and private.
“I'll let Sona know I'll be missing classes in two days.” I agreed without trying to change the time or the venue. I would have to make a few alterations to the gym, too. I wasn't going to show up in a potentially hostile environment without any preparations or contingencies in place. “We haven't eaten lunch yet. Would you like to join us? I arranged for Ravel to send me a shipment of monster rabbit last week to try different cooking styles with and they all turned out well.”
Grayfia looked like she was going to refuse.
“There's only half an hour left for lunch.” Rachnara said. “We need to eat quickly so John can get back to class in time.”
Grayfia gave her a brief annoyed look before she nodded to me. I waved my hand at the coffee table and used an illusion of a magic circle as I dropped a bunch of different dishes from my inventory onto the tabletop.
“There's sliced roast, stew, skewers, pulled meat sandwiches, deep fried, jerky, and gravy made from all the drippings to add over the potatoes and vegetables.” I said as I pointed to each dish. “The last one there is a pasta casserole with small diced chunks of meat inside.”
All of them were drooling at the smells and the sight of all the great food.
“Please, help yourselves.” I barely said and they fell onto the food like vultures. I saw Rachnara send a text using a pair of spider legs as she used her hands to pick up a plate and chowed down on some of the roast rabbit. I stepped back out of the way and watched as Koneko, Kiba, and Issei rushed into the room and joined in on the feast. Hugh was still busy, apparently.
A few minutes later, Sona and her Peerage appeared in a teleportation circle and she gave me a passionate kiss and they joined the others and started eating as well. I had to stop myself from laughing at them tearing through everything, even the potatoes and vegetables after smothering them with the gravy. They didn't even use the silverware I had left on the table, which was pretty damn funny.
I sat off to the side and ate my own packed lunch as the normal Devils and Reincarnated Devils pretty much wallowed in the food. The sounds the females made as they ate were nice to hear and the males added the occasional approving grunt or soft hum. The best part was that I never once tasted any of it and it still came out great.
There was some light conversation about school as the rest of the time for lunch quickly passed and then the bell rang. A fairly loud chorus of thanks came from everyone for the delicious food and the look Grayfia gave me would have made me hard if I wasn't already from the sounds she and the other women made while they ate.
I waved goodbye as I left the room and Issei and Kiba followed behind me. We passed Hugh in the hallway and he gave me a quick hug and whispered a promise to visit on the weekend with Rachnara. I nodded and Issei and I went to our next class in the main school building and Kiba went upstairs to his own classroom.
When we entered, Aika gave me a searching look, clearly wanting to know what Rias wanted me for. I sat behind her and whispered about what happened during lunch, including Rachnara teasing me, and I made sure that she knew I would have preferred to spend it with her like we had planned. She gave me a warm smile in return and went back to paying attention to the teacher.
When school let out at the end of the day, I went to the alcove I usually used to apparate home and popped back to the living room. “Eye? Any luck placing the tracers?”
“Beep.” Eye said and showed me a hologram of Japan.
I smiled at him and patted the top of his drone body. “Thanks, buddy. We finally found out where the Youkai's expanded dimensional space is located.”
“Beep?” Eye asked me.
“Oh, I doubt they're going to welcome us with open arms as we clear out the man-eating Youkai from their clans.” I said with a laugh. “Start gathering up some of the sentries and I'll bring out a few droidekas from storage. It's about time they had their practical test to make sure their magical cores work just as well as their naquadah generators.”
“Boooop.” Eye said and then whistled like R2, which made me laugh again.
“We'll gather any documents that support the clan leaders agreeing to stop their members from hunting the human race and then show the others the evidence that they are only giving lip service to their leader, Yusaka.”
“Beep.” Eye agreed.
“We'll record everything, too. We don't want to end up on her hit list after doing her dirty work for her. Being a loose end is not where I want to be, so we'll make sure we're too valuable to cross.” I said as I went over to the second lab.
Eye beeped at me a few times as he followed.
“Wait, really? The Japanese Space Agency finally approved a launch?” I asked and he beeped again. “Well, damn. Do you think they'll notice all the new satellites and how clean everything is up there?”
“Boop beep.” Eye said and beeped a laugh.
“Ha hahaha! They can't find the moon with a high powered telescope and a solar system map? That's a good one, Eye!” I laughed. “I almost expected you to make a Uranus joke.”
“Beep.” Eye said, his tone superior.
“It might be below your standards my friend; but, it's not below mine.” I joked and we both kept laughing as we gathered the mechanical forces we would need to take the fight to one of the enemies of mankind.
*
The Oni sentry didn't even see the laser that sliced the top of his head off. The stealth drone was one of the first constructed that actually worked with both power sources and wasn't the size of a refrigerator. Its companion had already dealt with the other one a hundred feet away and quickly joined the others to blaze a path into the disguised and hidden compound.
The rolling and shielded battle droids were deployed from a specifically designed Gatehopper that only carried the droids and nothing else that Jack O'Neill and I designed back in the Stargate universe. There were twenty droidekas and they dropped down as the shuttelcraft flew over the compound and they smashed into various buildings and into the most dangerous targets.
Heavy plasma weapons were deployed by them and they unloaded into the worst offenders and any of the Youkai and Onis that had been scanned and confirmed to have eaten human flesh. Since the satellite stationed above the area was communicating in real time with all of the droids to hunt down anyone trying to fight or hide, the operation was over after only 8 minutes.
“Gather up the remaining Youkai and scour the buildings for any paperwork or any other evidence.” Hyperion ordered as he flew down into the middle of the compound and landed. He took out a huge metal crate that was the size of a car from his inventory and set it down. “I'll start doing the deep scan for human remains and we'll see how long these monsters have been snacking on the locals.”
A chorus of beeps came from the droid sentries and they spread out to complete their mission. The droidekas formed a perimeter around Hyperion, John Hansen's superhero persona, and readied their weapons as their glowing blue shields protected them and him from pretty much everything.
With the crate opened and the scanning device activated, it didn't take long before several caches of human bones buried in mass graves were found. The surviving Youkai were brought out of their hiding places and into the middle of the compound where Hyperion and the shield droids were.
Mounds of evidence were also dropped nearby and it was mostly piles of human clothing, weapons, jewellery, cell phones, and even prosthetic limbs and artificial joints.
“On one hand, I can understand why you targeted the old and infirm first. It eases the strain on the economy and the hospitals.” Hyperion said to the old bear-like Youkai that was the oldest member of the clan that was still alive. “On the other hand, I'll never forgive the fact that you also cleared out the sick children's ward.”
The old bear-like Youkai sighed. “There was nothing I could do. I only found out after the fact...”
“...and you weren't high enough in the clans to say anything without being killed.” Hyperion finished for him and he nodded. “What would you have done if you were?”
The Youkai opened his mouth to speak, then sighed. “You already know my answer.”
Hyperion nodded because he had already searched their minds. He stepped aside to show off the six burial sites in the area. “Once is chance.” He said and pointed to the oldest pile. “Twice is a coincidence.” He pointed to the next pile. “Three times is enemy action.”
The bear-like Youkai started to poise to attack and all the droidekas fired at once without warning. The sixteen hostages died instantly in a spray of heavy plasma fire and gore.
“All right, Eye. Send in the Harvesters. I want this place cleared out completely with nothing left.” Hyperion said. “I'll need two to dig out the burial sites. If we're lucky, I can get some viable DNA from the bones and can identify the victims.”
“Boop.” Eye said over the open comm link.
Hyperion sighed. “Dammit, Eye. Don't kill my hope.”
“Beep boop.” Eye commented.
“No, no, you're right. They probably broke the bones open and sucked out the marrow because it was tasty.” Hyperion said with a sigh and used a datapad to copy the information from the scanner. “It's not like I can grow them to their previous ages and restore their memories, either. They'd be empty shells.”
“Beep?” Eye asked.
“No, there's no point in offering their families a new baby from their lost one's remains. There would be too much emotional pain for them to grow up normally.” Hyperion answered and waved over two of the Harvesters from the first group the transport was dropping off.
“Boop?” Eye asked.
“Sure. Store all of the gathered items and we'll sort them out later. If the identification of the bones doesn't work out, you can have fun searching through all their phones and the local police's missing person reports. Try to match them to anything we've found if you can.”
“Beep.” Eye agreed and one of the sentries floated over to the pile of items and papers. A small tractor beam picked everything up and dropped it all into a large storage container.
Hyperion led the two Harvesters over to the first bone deposit and had them slowly strip off the top layers of dirt and rocks to dig down to the mass grave. He was not looking forward to what had to happen over the next few hours. Not at all.
*
Yasaka was a nine-tailed golden fox Youkai, currently in her human form, and her power was on par with an Ultimate Class Devil. She was also the official leader of the Youkai Faction and lived in Kyoto, Japan. The position hadn't been difficult to acquire when there was a shift in the leadership of the various clans; but, keeping it for years without being murdered or assassinated was the more difficult aspect of the job.
Her fellow Youkai respected her strength and resented her stance on trying to keep the peace with the humans and the other supernatural beings. She had tried to explain that if they didn't maintain peace, then they would be in a war that they would lose, because every other faction would rally against them to wipe them all out.
Unfortunately, this only made her seem weaker and gained her no favors from the Youkai clan leaders. Some were even poised to remove her and her daughter from the faction's leadership. Those were the ones she had to keep her eyes on, because they were more ruthless with their lower class citizens and the humans. They were the real danger to her leadership and undermined her at every turn.
A sudden flash of light on her desk made her leap back and knock over her chair and she poised to attack, then the light faded and revealed several thick manila folders full of paperwork. She used several techniques to check if they were booby-trapped and nothing showed up, so she used a nearby pen to flip open the top folder.
Yasaka gasped when she saw the first of many photos of victims and she dove into the paperwork and started reading. It took her several hours before she finished with the final folder, the one with the evidence that several of her clans were guilty of the murders of so many humans. Tears were in her eyes at how many people she would have to execute, mostly because her people would hate her for it.
Another flash of light beside her desk didn't make her flinch. Instead, she leaned to the side to look and saw the heads of each and every clan head that were guilty. Her eyes widened and all of the hairs on her body stood on end at seeing the decapitated heads of some of their most vicious and powerful clan members.
“Who...” Yasaka whispered and closed her mouth to stop herself from asking a question that might end up with her head joining the pile. She was confident she could put up a great fight if it came to it, except she was sure that if it did come down to a fight, with the evidence right there in front of her of her people's guilt, she wouldn't last very long. Not very long at all.
To her surprise, the intrusions hadn't alerted her guards. That was a huge breach in security and Yasaka wasn't sure if there was anything she could do about it. Another flash of light on her desk revealed a new folder and she opened it right away. Her breath caught when she saw the security details for warding her entire sub-dimension with ward stones and a computer setup that worked around magic.
“John Hansen.” Yasaka said, her voice firm. She had heard word of him over the last few months and several of her clans had sent out informants to dig up information on him and his operations. With what was on her desk, it seemed that he had gained much more information from those informants instead. Now she was sure that everything on her desk was his responsibility.
At the end of the folder of information was a contract. Yasaka didn't hesitate to sign it with her pen and agreed to the outrageous cost. The paper glowed, duplicated itself, and the original disappeared. Before she could do more than blink at the impressive reactive magic, another piece of paper appeared in a brief flash and it had a schedule for both the delivery and installation for the ward scheme.
Yasaka smiled as she initialled where indicated and the paper did the same copy thing and the original disappeared. She was awed by the passive magic and wondered if it would ever wear out if she never signed it and activated it. She shook her head to push that silly thought aside and sent for her daughter. She would take the rest of the day off after so much excitement and would spoil her for the afternoon.
Soon, she would be able to relax for real and wouldn't have to worry as much about missing an attack on her people. When the work crews came to install the main array, she would have to ask about adding a few extensions to her people's properties and businesses outside their sub-dimension. She was already paying a lot for the service and a bit more wouldn't matter in the end.
*
“Hey, Eye! How are the tech conversions for the main factories coming along?” I asked Eye when I entered the house after school. Aika gave me a kiss and went down to the basement to meet up with the rest of her friends.
“Beep boop.” Eye responded.
“Wow, really? I thought they would have a harder time upgrading their machinery for the new production runs.” I said and sat down on the living room couch. The coffee table lit up and the hologram showed the conversion progress and they had already started mass production of internal components for electronic devices. “You've done a great job, Eye. A great job.”
Eye beeped proudly at me and then asked about my secret project.
“Yes, I've already managed to miniaturize the propulsion system for your new drone upgrade.” I said and decided to tease him a little. “When it's done and built, you're going to have a fat ass.”
Eye beeped at me like R2 and I laughed pretty hard.
“Ha... haaaa. I needed that.” I said when I calmed down. “Is there any change in the details for the meeting with the Angels tomorrow?”
“Boop.” Eye responded.
“Good, good. I'm looking forward to finally meeting them.” I said and changed the holotable to show the map of the school and the auditorium where the meeting was being held. “No one's disturbed the modifications I added.”
“Beep.” Eye said and highlighted the logs for the people that had visited there.
“Well, isn't that interesting.” I said and tapped on the visits by several disguised Grigori members and them installing video cameras, microphones, and both digital and magical recording devices, some of which were under the table and would give upskirt shots of anyone sitting down. “I'm glad I installed the signal jammer where no one else could find it.”
Eye beeped in agreement. Making an underground tunnel and shielding it from detection was child's play. It would also allow me a non-magical escape route if it was necessary. I doubted it would be; but, it was better to be safe than sorry.
“With that handled, is Ravel having any difficulty taking over running the public businesses in the human world?” I asked and Eye beeped at me. “Yeah, I'll visit her tonight and she can tell me, too. I just wanted your opinion before I try to make her relax and ask her to trust her Peerage a little more and let them shoulder some of that responsibility as her due date approaches.”
“Beep beep boop.” Eye commented.
I smiled and nodded. “I knew she had a head for business. Those are great expansion ideas and will help us immensely.”
“Beep.” Eye agreed. “Beep beep.”
“There's a higher investment interest specifically because she took over?” I asked and he beeped at me. “Is it because she's a Phenex or because she's a beautiful blonde?”
“Boop beep.” Eye said.
“Ha ha! Mostly the blonde part! Ha hahaha!” I laughed and Eye beeped in laughter, too. “We have to... make her the face... of the Hansen Corporation.”
“Beep.” Eye responded.
“Good point. Do up the logos and redesign them to add in a fiery phoenix inside the first O in Corporation and the Sitri Clan logo in the second O.” I said and he showed me several options. “That one. Thanks, buddy. Send it off to Ravel for final approval and then to the sign manufacturer and have it mounted on top of the main office building in Tokyo when it's done.”
“Boop?” Eye asked me.
“Yes, it's about time to show the world that the Hansen Corporation is going to be the leader in releasing new technology. Cell phones, televisions, computers, and gaming consoles. We can start adding television programs, movies, and everything else we can convert from my archives and sell as a new product.”
“Beep beep boop?” Eye asked me.
“That's a good point. I've always had a decent relationship with the military. Set up a few discreet backroom calls about weapon manufacturing and vehicle upgrades with someone in the Pentagon. A decade's jump in military warfare should gain us a small audience at least. If we're lucky, the Japanese Government will take the hint and might answer our inquiries, too.”
“Boop.” Eye responded.
Ravager slid onto the couch beside me and gave me a very particular look. Yes, that look. I pretended to ignore her for a few seconds and she let out a cute little growl before she punched the side of my head to make sure she had my full attention.
It made me chuckle and I turned off the holotable to look at her. Before I could apologize for teasing her, she grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, pulled me off of the couch, and pretty much dragged me to her room for the night.
Ravager had apparently caught Baby Fever again from the expanded group of lizard-women with their next batch of eggs being successfully fertilized by her fully grown son and she wanted another child to raise and teach her techniques to. I obliged of course.
By the morning, she was pregnant with our daughter. It made her very happy and she even rewarded me with cuddling for fifteen minutes before she drop-kicked me out of her bed and told me to get lost. I laughed and shook my head at her antics and went to get a shower in my own room, changed into my best and most expensive suit, and left the house to go to the meeting with the Heaven Faction.
Not surprisingly, someone had set up their own monitoring spells and eavesdropping spells. I had Eye record the magical signatures and then dispelled them. Would that make a few people nervous to not know what Michael wanted with me? Yes. Did I care? Kind of. Was I going to soothe their egos for disappointing them? Why the hell would I do that? Screw them.
I walked into the auditorium and almost stumbled when I passed over some kind of barrier and there was a nearly ear-splitting squeal of delight and giggling laughter from cherubic children that forced me to smile and feel joyous happiness. I didn't like them screwing with my head like that and immediately dispelled the effect. My smile changed to a frown as I approached the large conference table.
Michael the Archangel sat at the head of the table and there were two other Angels with him. Their faces didn't give away that they knew their first gambit didn't work. I looked at them and saw that the three of them wore simple togas and sandals and they didn't have their wings deployed.
They were also laughing about something, as if one of them had told a funny joke before I entered the room, and I felt the small pulses of magic flowing off of the huge-breasted blonde woman that sat on Michael's right.
“Casting area effect magic without permission in a declared safe meeting area is considered an enormous insult to both the hosting party and the other invited guests.” I commented, my frown not changing to a smile like they had planned.
All three Angels lost their smiles and stopped laughing as the supposedly passive magic around them died. Now that I was close enough, I could see the third angel on Michael's left was an androgynous form that was difficult to tell the gender of. Were they considered male or female? Or were they above such petty concerns, just like naming one of their most beautiful angels after the male-engendered name Gabriel instead of spelling it Gabrielle?
Michael let out a sigh and motioned to the other end of the table. “My apologies, Mister Hansen. Gabriel was telling us a tale from when we were children and Uriel was enthusiastic about his enjoyment of it.”
That's a nice explanation to cover up the spell-casting. I thought as I stopped walking beside the table and looked at the far end of it that was quite the separation of space if I sat there and I looked back at him. “Perhaps you shouldn't have tried to force a companionable atmosphere where none was needed, since you have achieved the exact opposite with your actions.”
That comment made Gabriel and Uriel embarrassed and Michael looked like he was fighting not to frown like I was.
“Go ahead and frown. I am.” I said and motioned to my own face.
Michael's mouth formed a thin line instead. “I apologize again, Mister Hansen. We are starting off on the wrong foot and that was the last thing I wanted.”
I almost laughed at him for the stupid comment and motioned to the large table. “Did you really think making me sit at the far end of the table, like an errant child to be dealt with and not an equal, was going to be a better start to this meeting?”
Michael let out a sigh at being caught and the other two angels looked embarrassed again.
“Before you put your foot back in your mouth, Grayfia shared the footage of the gathering before the last meeting you had, so I would have some kind of reference in how to act. I was particularly interested in the groupings you had beforehand.”
“Why?” Gabriel asked and looked even more embarrassed for interrupting me.
Instead of answering, I took out a tablet and turned on the holotable to play it. The three angels watched as Michael and Shemhazei talked like old friends, despite one being an Angel and the other one was a Fallen Angel. Not far away from them, Sirzechs and Grayfia talked with Serafall and Azazel and were casual about things.
“The antagonizing atmosphere didn't surface until the meeting officially started and the three factions sat down and started to talk about actual business... and no, Grayfia did not share the contents of the meeting with me.” I said and ended the recording as the factions sat down. “Since this meeting was supposed to have less restrictions for conduct, by your explicit request, it makes me wonder why you wanted to meet me alone.”
Michael looked conflicted for a moment before he spoke. “It was not my intention to make you uncomfortable.”
“And yet, you cast both barrier magic, influencing magic, and brought two other angels as backup to outnumber me.” I said and motioned to the two angels, whom both looked very embarrassed now.
“That wasn't why he wanted me here!” Gabriel exclaimed.
I raised a single eyebrow at her and she blushed to a deep red. “Please enlighten me to Michael's intentional machinations instead of the ones I've inferred or possibly mistakenly implied.”
Gabriel ducked her head and gave Michael a pleading look.
Michael sighed and nodded. “Go ahead, Gabriel. You might as well tell him.”
Gabriel shook her head. “I've already ruined things. I won't run them further.”
“She's the most beautiful Angel in Heaven. I brought her here to distract you from the potential seriousness of this meeting and to help you relax as we discussed things.” Michael admitted.
I gave Gabriel a searching look and her blush rushed back. “I'm not saying this to be mean...” I started to say and Michael seemed to deflate a little. “...the cherubic look does nothing for me.” I finished and looked at Uriel. “Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding, that goes for you, too.”
Uriel sighed, almost in relief, and silence fell in the auditorium. I stood there and didn't do or say anything. I didn't change the table, asked them to move and make room for me at their end, or asked them to stand to greet me properly like they should have. They looked increasingly awkward as the silence stretched on and I waited to see if any of them would speak first.
At the five minute mark, Michael's chair scraped on the floor and he stood. “It seems we are at an impasse.” He said and sighed as the other two angels also stood. “I will let the others know that a member of the Devil Faction refuses to make deals with the Heaven Faction.”
That comment immediately infuriated me.
“How dare you spout such lies!” I spat at him and all three Angels were startled and leaned away from my anger. “You haven't greeted me, introduced yourselves, or told me what you want!” I shouted and the look of surprise on Michael's face was priceless, as was the shock on Gabriel's. Uriel's face was blank. I could feel the horror he felt, though. They had messed up big time. “As the injured party, I could legally kill you all for that INSULT!”
The three Angels blanched and lost all color from their faces.
I took several deep breaths and calmed down. I did not want anger or resentment to dictate what I was going to say. “Instead, I will be forwarding copies of this... meeting... to all the factions and not just the three largest and powerful ones.” I said and stepped back from the table. “Everyone will know exactly why you wanted this meeting to be private. You didn't want anyone to witness your treachery in intimidating me, manipulating me, and then defaming me to use it against the Devil Faction.”
“YOU CAN'T DO THAT!” Gabriel screamed and her golden wings deployed as she lunged across the table at me, her face full of anger.
I would freely admit to myself later that I overreacted to her attack as I used one hand to catch her wrist and gained her image, 'Arch-Angel - female', then I instantly boosted my physical stats and slammed my fist into her face.
The crunch sound was very loud in the quiet auditorium as my fist crushed her nose and she flew across the room and crashed into the magically reinforced wall I had enchanted earlier. Several more crunch sounds told me that her wings had broken as well and she fell to the floor looking dazed.
I should have caught her and held her instead of hitting her; but, it was too late to do that now. To the shock of the other two Angels and my own surprise, the golden light faded from Gabriel's form and her magnificent gold wings slowly reformed and converted into a raven-black color.
“Oh, no.” Uriel whispered and stared at his now Fallen sister that was quickly recovering and we all saw as anger changed her face from it's normal cherubic look to one full of hatred.
“That's not something you see every day.” I said, my tone serious. I wasn't going to make a joke about it, since I had no idea that I could so easily make an Arch-Angel succumb to the sin of Wrath.
“I'm going to kill you!” Gabriel shouted as she pulled herself up off of the floor. She wiped at the blood on her face and a glow of magic covered her face and her wings. They snapped into shape, she screamed in pain when her wings were forcibly healed, then she yelled inarticulately as she flew at me with her hands forming glowing light spears.
A golden-glowing hand grabbed her arm before she could reach me and a very sad Michael pulled her into a warm embrace as we all felt the calming magic he used on her. “I am so very sorry, my dearest sister.”
Gabriel instantly lost the anger as her light spears dissipated and tears came to her eyes. “Oh, Michael! I fell! What am I going to do now?”
Michael started crying as well. Uriel stood there, stunned, and looked like he didn't know what to do.
It was a good thing that I did. “If you can't permit her to return to Heaven in the state she's in, she's welcome to stay here with my people.”
Gabriel yelled inarticulately as her anger at me rushed back and she tried to break free of Michael's embrace.
Michael easily held onto her as she fruitlessly struggled. “You are not helping this situation, Mister Hansen.”
I sighed and motioned to Gabriel. “I doubt you want her to go to the Fallen Angel faction, even if Azazel is retired. We all know that he's been after Gabriel's breasts for millennia. If he finds out she's Fallen, you know he's never going to stop pursuing her.”
Gabriel's anger faded away at being reminded of that and she started sobbing.
“Unfortunately, he is right about how our Fallen brother will act, dear sister.” Michael said and Gabriel hugged him tightly as she cried her eyes out.
I let it go on for several minutes as they exchanged pleasant nothings and Michael did his best to convince her that I was the lesser evil. “Yeah, fuck you, too.”
That made Michael and Uriel frown at me and Gabriel hissed at me like an angry cat.
“You came here and set me up to fail, intentionally or not. I managed to turn it around on you and you're blaming me for it.” I told them and they lost the anger. “I'm offering her a place where she won't be judged for her mistakes and you're calling me the lesser evil. How would you like for me to actually act like that?”
“You've proven you are.” Michael said and motioned around the room at the glowing runes on the walls, ceiling, and floor. “This wasn't like this yesterday.”
“Yes, it was. You just couldn't detect it until it was activated.” I explained and his eyes widened. “I also disabled all surveillance, both magical and physical, so that no one else would know what happened here.”
Uriel gave me a scathing look and pointed at me. “You're a liar! You just said you were going to release the recording to destroy our credibility!”
“Oh, I'm still going to do that.” I said and chuckled at their surprised faces. “You think you're above things like common courtesy and manners and that it's a chore to deal with other races that you believe are beneath you. I won't stop the truth from getting out, considering how terrible you people run the Christian Church and your entire religion. As in, you don't.”
“We... we're doing our best.” Gabriel said, halfheartedly.
I looked at her tear-streaked face and walked over to her. She tensed up and Michael hugged her tighter. Instead of saying anything about that, I reached out and cupped the side of her face as I let out a pulse of magic and Chi through my palm. I gained her Fallen Angel template and smiled as she moaned.
“What... what are you doing to her?” Michael asked as Gabriel glowed gold.
“I'm proving to her that even if she's Fallen and the Father of all has passed on, God hasn't forsaken her.” I said and they gasped.
“You... you... you know.” Gabriel whispered and looked into my eyes.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I know pretty much everything. After talking to Azazel for a while, I started digging, both physically and mystically. I needed to know what has been going on around here and what I had to do to deal with the mess.”
“D-deal with the mess?” Uriel asked, nervously.
“Of course. I had planned to stay out of everything and wanted to live a nice quiet life, then the very first thing I did to protect myself had announced my presence to the entire magical community.”
“The protection wards.” Michael said when he understood what I meant.
“I've pretty much been working upstream as I figured things out, trying to both survive and not gain too much attention at the same time.” I said and let Gabriel's face go and she pouted at me as her glow faded. “It's just too bad that everyone else seems to think I'm supposed to get involved because I can.” I said and then chuckled. “Except for Azazel. He's terrified that I'll chose to... in his words... take care of everything.”
Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel shivered at the ominous tone to my words.
“Yes, exactly. He thinks I'll nuke you all out of existence and solve all of the world's problems. It's kind of amusing, actually.” I said and the three of them lost the color in their faces again. “It's all right. I'm not at that point yet, so you can relax.”
“Yet?” Michael asked.
“It's difficult to not cause a lot of collateral damage if I removed all of the supernatural influences on the planet. The enclaves, hidden areas, and individual sources of magic and supernatural power are too integrated into normal society to remove them all and remain unnoticed. So, I need to work slowly and cut them out like performing surgery on a sick patient.”
Gabriel caught her breath and let Michael her go in surprise.
“What is it, dear sister?” Michael asked, confused at her reaction.
“He's the one that removed the thorns in Yasaka's side!” Gabriel said as she stared at me.
I had to smile at the description. “If you mean the cannibals and human devourers, then yes.” I produced a copy of the final findings to hand to her. “She doesn't know it was me, however. Officially, anyway.”
Gabriel flipped through the folder with the two Angels on either side of her reading as well.
“She sent a proposal for one of your ward systems?” Gabriel asked when she saw the addition, since the cleared out areas where the removed clan lands had been cleansed and wouldn't be added to the protection spells.
“I offered, actually. It's much easier to ward an already separated sub-dimension. I just tie the magic into the dimensional barrier and let the ambient magic power the detection and protection spells.” I explained. “The array can be set up and active in barely half the time.”
They finished the file and tried to hand it back to me. I dismissed the copy instead and they stared at the dissolving papers that no longer existed.
“Do you understand how much you've screwed up?” I asked and only Michael nodded. “Good. Then there's only one thing left to do.” I said and held my hand out to Gabriel and she frowned at it. I waited for ten seconds with it extended out to her and I wiggled my fingers. She didn't take it and I let it drop back to my side. “Very well. The hand of friendship has been offered and rejected.”
Uriel caught his breath and Gabriel looked embarrassed.
“Mister Hansen...” Michael started to say.
“That's lesser of two evils to you.” I said and Michael sighed, because he was the one to cause Gabriel's hesitation in accepting my hand, even after I had shared some energy with her. “I'll provide Gabriel separate housing and food for her own use. No one will bother her. She can come and go as she pleases, as long as she doesn't spy on myself or my people. If she causes any problems or attacks anyone, I reserve the right to rescind my generous offer to protect her.”
That was when the three of them realized that Gabriel's safety from the other factions solely relied upon my generosity. Tears came to Michael's eyes again and he hugged his sister. Gabriel hugged him back and looked like she was fighting to not start crying again. Uriel put a hand on her shoulder and gave it several squeezes.
Michael let her go and turned to me. “Mister Hansen...”
“You've already burned away all of the goodwill I had for you.” I interrupted him. “Do you honestly expect me to listen to anything you want to say?”
“I only wanted to request...”
“No.” I cut him off again and he frowned. “Whatever you ask for, I have to refuse on pure principle because of this meeting. You know that, right? Anything you want me to do that will benefit you, gains me nothing.”
“You... you're a j-jerk!” Gabriel exclaimed.
Instead of replying, I pointed to her black wings and then pointed at Michael's embarrassed face. Gabriel blushed and ducked her head. She knew this entire setup was her brother's fault.
Michael turned back to her. “I'll contact you as soon as...”
“No.” I interrupted again and Michael sighed with resignation. “Do you regularly contact Fallen Angels?”
“No, but...”
“Do you pop into other people's homes in the mortal realm to visit?” I asked.
“No, but...”
“Do you have a phone or some other means of communication with people not in Heaven?”
“No, but...”
“Are you going to use some divine powers to talk to her?”
“No, but...”
“Do you want her to risk her life and eternal soul by going outside to meet you somewhere?”
“No, but...”
“Then how exactly are you supposed to contact her? I'm sure we would all like to know.” I said and Michael sighed again as Gabriel and Uriel gave him questioning looks. “Well? We're waiting.”
Michael opened his mouth and closed it. “I was going to figure something out when I had the chance.”
Gabriel was the one to sigh this time.
“You seem to be caught up in the empty platitude stage of your race's emotional development.” I said with a straight face, because now was not the time to remind him that was what he had been doing with the churches all over the planet for decades.
His negligence was why the churches and clergy were all out of control and easily manipulated and corrupted by evil influences. There were more crimes and debauchery performed in the church's name than most criminal organizations combined. The Heaven Faction either had no idea it was happening, meaning they were ignorant and clueless, or they knew about it and let it go on because they had no idea how to fix it.
My bet was on the last one, mostly because the horrible things the members of the church did were so prevalent and wide-spread across the world that they really should have become their own minor faction instead of staying under the arbitrary command of the Heaven Faction. The Angels rarely exercised their authority, so why did the church continue to follow them? Because God said so?
Funnily enough, neither Gabriel nor Uriel tried to counter my comment, which settled my bet with myself. Unfortunately, sometimes winning meant you were also losing. It had happened to me enough for me to understand that the reverse was also true. Sometimes you had to lose in order to win.
“It's against my better judgment; but, I'm willing to set up a secure room that cannot be detected magically. Gabriel, or someone you designate, can set up a means of teleportation inside. It can only be used to visit her, either in person or sending her packages, since she can't travel back and forth to Heaven in her current form.”
Michael nodded and looked pleased at my concession. Uriel smiled and Gabriel looked on the verge of crying again. The three of them said their goodbyes and hugged, then Michael and Uriel walked over to the side and activated their portal. The ritual circle appeared over their heads instead of under their feet, created a portal, and they deployed their wings before floating up and disappearing through it.
Gabriel let out a soft sigh and wiped a tear from her eye. I didn't offer her my hand again and she looked sad that I didn't. I wasn't going to go back on my word, though. She would lose all respect for me if I showed such weakness. Old-fashioned meant something completely different to beings that were thousands of years old.
I created a nice normal dress that covered everything and matching underwear to replace her toga. I motioned to a changing screen I created for her and she gave me a curious look as she hugged the clothing.
“You need to change and hide your wings. We're going out among the students.” I said.
Gabriel didn't try to refuse and went behind the screen. She quickly changed and came out looking like a gorgeous blonde human. I motioned to the door and she followed me out of the auditorium. She didn't ask me anything or commented about having to walk, and I noticed that her steps were a little off.
I did a quick scan of her surface thoughts and found out that she was going to miss being able to hold her wings out and float above the floor without any effort. When I dug a little deeper to trace why, I discovered that the energy her body produced had fundamentally changed and her abilities had changed with it.
It was a surprise to find that out, since I was sure things weren't supposed to be that way. Maybe it was a mental switch and it was all psychosomatic? It was that way because they believed it was supposed to be that way when they fell? Or did the energy really change and they had to adapt to it?
I led her into the school and a few of the students stared at her, at me, and whispers followed us through the hallways as we went to the Student Council office. Needless to say, Sona was shocked when she saw Gabriel. Several members of Sona's Peerage were there as well and stared at her like she was the embodiment of death.
I cast a silence spell on the door to stop anyone outside from hearing. “Sona Sitri, the appointed ruler of the Kuoh Territory, I must inform you that a new resident has arrived and will be under my tentative protection, under the condition she doesn't spy or initiate an attack on anyone.”
Sona sat there, completely speechless. Her mind was going through dozens of reasons to deny my request and she was trying to decide which one she could voice that wouldn't piss me off.
“Before you speak, you need to watch this.” I said and used my tablet to send to her desk holoprojector. Everyone in the office watched the so-called meeting and the disastrous outcome that the other holotable recorded. They also gasped when they saw Gabriel fall.
“You're protecting her from everyone and not just the Fallen.” Sona deduced and I nodded. “Very well. I grant your request. All of her actions are now your responsibility and anything she does will be attributed to you and you will be the one to suffer any consequences and penalties.”
Just as I nodded, the teleportation circle at the side of the room lit up. Since I wasn't an idiot, I didn't stand there and let anything happen. I grabbed Gabriel's arm and apparated out of the room just as a smug looking Serafall Leviathan appeared in a flash of light.
There's the proof Sona wanted that her sister had her under constant surveillance. I thought as Gabriel and I appeared inside my airport hangar.
Gabriel opened her mouth to speak, probably to comment about how I had teleported without teleporting or using magic, then she made a very weird sound because she could see the large Firefly in the hangar and a handful of droids puttering around.
“Hello, John. Who's this?” Andromeda asked.
“Someone I shouldn't have brought here in a panic before introducing you.” I said with a sigh. “This was the first place I could think of that wouldn't be immediately searched by Serafall as she looked for my new guest that's under my protection.”
“Ah, the obscuring ward hiding the hangar from detection. Good choice.” Andromeda said and a sparkly swirl of energy appeared in front of us. A moment later, a hologram of a handsome woman with long brown hair appeared and she wore a mobile emitter. She held a hand out to Gabriel. “Hello, Gabriel. My name is Andromeda.”
Gabriel looked at the hand and then looked at me.
“It doesn't count. She's just being polite.” I said and Gabriel nodded and shook the offered hand. “Well, since we're here anyway, prep yourself for launch.”
“Oh, goody! Where are we headed?” Andromeda said as the droids checked her over and she dropped the cockpit ramp for us instead of making us walk all the way through the ship from the cargo hold. The droids packed up and went up into the ship as well.
“Haven.” I said and Andromeda laughed when Gabriel gasped in shock.
“He said Haven, not Heaven.” Andromeda reassured her and Gabriel relaxed. “Come this way.” She said and didn't let Gabriel's hand go as she led her up the ramp. “You can sit upfront with me while John loads the cargo bay with supplies.”
Gabriel's eyes were wide as saucers as she was brought inside a technological marvel that she had never seen before or even suspected could exist.
“Did you like my chromium-plated armor? I absolutely adore it. It lets me ram through both asteroid fields without a care.” Andromeda gushed and the ramp closed behind them.
I shook my head at her enthusiasm and went to the cargo bay through the ship. I entered it and filled it with everything someone would need for an extended stay at one of the environmental domes. The staple food situation was already handled, thanks to the farms inside the domes, so I added tons of junk food, thousands of books, things to watch, games to play, and tons of clothes.
“Prepared for lift-off.” Andromeda's voice came over the intercom. “Engaging camouflage.”
I felt her lift off and I didn't go to the cockpit. I figured Gabriel wouldn't want me there as we left the atmosphere and she saw where we were going. “Andromeda, take the tourist route. It's the perfect time to test it out and to make sure it's not too overwhelming for the uninitiated.”
“That's a great idea, John! Starting practice run now.” Andromeda responded.
I went to one of the passenger cabins and made myself comfortable. It would take several hours for the space tour around Earth and the moon to be completed and then we would head to Venus, Mars, and two of the moons around Jupiter. Haven was in orbit around Saturn, so that was our last stop. I was also going to check on the progress of the terraforming process at each planet and moon.
It was going to be lonely out there for Gabriel; but, it was the best way for her to be protected from... well, everyone. No one would ever think to look for her on another planet. Plus, I wanted to make sure the Stargate I set up was working properly.
I decided to give Andromeda the option of staying with her for a while, too. She seemed to hit it off with Gabriel and it made me wonder how the newly Fallen Angel would have gotten along with the people that already lived in my house.
What about the Dhampir Compound? Would she hate them on sight, now that she was a Fallen Angel and was prone to Wrath? I shook that thought out of my head and chose to not test it. That was just asking for trouble and I didn't want to kick her out, now that I had two very specific samples to work with.
Panacea and I had a lot more work to do, now that I had a copy of what could be considered a 'divine being', both before and after falling. With those two for comparison, especially with the two different energy signatures, it should be a complete game-changer for our research into the Evil Piece system and its effects.
Could we completely fix them with enough data samples or would it remain as only a means to bind people to another person's will? I asked myself as I waved goodbye to Andromeda and Gabriel.
I apparated into orbit and created Voyager 4. She opened her bay doors for me and I flew inside and greeted her. I made my way to the bridge and sat down in the command chair to enjoy a leisurely flight back to Earth and to set up the facilities she would need for both maintenance and to not be bored.
Maybe I could assign her to monitor the crybaby mapping project? It would help her adjust and fix the local star maps in real time instead of having to wait for the weekly updates. In the meantime, I had several protection ward systems to set up for certain clients.
*
Gabriel still felt stunned a week later. She had no idea that so many things were possible in her limited world view. She stared up through the environmental dome at the rings of Saturn in the slightly bluish sky and the wonder and awe she felt was the same as right after she had been created by her Father and she saw the wonders he had created in Heaven for her and the other angels to enjoy.
What she was seeing now was another aspect of what her Father had created. She had thought he stopped after creating Earth for humanity and now she knew differently. She saw he had made nine planets, so many moons that she didn't bother counting, and she easily ignored the mistakes that became asteroid belts in the middle of the solar system and at the edge.
Gabriel also tried her best to ignore the blasphemy that John Hansen was doing by fixing her Father's work. As if he knew what she was thinking, he handed her a datapad with reports and details on it.
“I'm not fixing it. I'm finishing it.” John said and tapped the screen. “The building blocks are already there for these locations and only these locations. I'm just putting them together so that they can be used.”
Gabriel sighed and started to read, then she frowned at what it said, then she sat down on a nearby bench and really started to read. She stayed there for nearly six hours before she finished and hadn't noticed that John had left a long time ago. She set the datapad aside and stared up at Saturn's rings again. They had moved across the sky and she could see Saturn itself filled a third of the sky.
“He's giving the factions their own planets.” Gabriel said in realization.
Andromeda chuckled as her hologram walked over to her. “Thanks a lot, Gabby. Now I owe John a chunk of platinum.” She sat beside her and put an arm over her shoulders. “He said you would figure it out before the end of the day and I said you had to sleep on it.”
Gabriel gave her new friend a sad smile. “I'm sorry that I had to fall to find all of this out.”
Andromeda shook her head. “He was going to broach the subject during the meeting that never happened, as well as a few other things he wanted to share with the Heaven Faction.”
Gabriel sighed and felt full of disappointment. “We derailed the talks before they even started.”
“Yes, you did.” Andromeda picked up the datapad and chose several options, then handed it to her.
Gabriel really didn't want to look at it, because she knew what it was going to show.
“You might as well see what the fallout is like.” Andromeda said.
Gabriel took the datapad and tears came to her eyes as she read about how the Angels were being torn apart in the various social media platforms for the different factions. Their so-called 'high and mighty' attitudes didn't help their stance at all and made them look even worse, especially when files for all the horrible things the church had condoned in the name of God. The experiments on children were the worst.
“Why, Andi? Why did he do this?” Gabriel asked, her sadness overriding her need to lash out. Wrath really was a horrible sin to fall to.
“Keep reading.” Andromeda said.
Gabriel did so and eventually caught her breath. Files upon files of the Naberius Clan, one of the 72 Devil Pillar Families, performing unholy experiments on Youkai. They succeeded for the most part, then she read why Kuroka the Nekoshou rebelled and killed her King.
The arrogant Devil had broken the vow he made with Kuroka after he had reincarnated her into his Peerage as a Devil and then experimented on her. His success with making her more powerful was the only prompting he needed to betray her and start using her five year old sister Shirone (Koneko) in them as well.
That revelation caused a lot of turmoil, especially with the proof the Devils had used it as an excuse to murder so many Youkai in retaliation of the King's murder. The backstabbing and assassinations by the Old Satan Faction on their opponents to retain power seemed tame in comparison to those terrible crimes.
“Is... is there anything about the Fallen Angels?” Gabriel asked, hope in her voice.
Andromeda smiled and showed her how to search. Gabriel did so and a slow smile formed on her face as she read about their crimes, about how one of their own named Kokabiel was planning to cause another great war by murdering the sisters of two of the ruling Satans and that agents of the church were involved, as well as devils, stray devils, and Youkai.
Even the horrible crimes of the Youkai that fed on negative emotions led by an evil nine-tailed white and black Youkai, murdering whole villages and sacrificing souls to resurrect her insane son to have him destroy her enemies, namely Yasaka and the other clan heads that had defeated her years ago.
It was a huge mess and everyone was up in arms about everything.
“H-how? How did he find all of this out?” Gabriel asked.
“John's been searching for things ever since he found himself involved with the supernatural. It's just taken him a lot of time to work out how to hide his tech from magical detection. Once he did, well... wouldn't you seed stealth satellites and drones everywhere to keep your people safe?”
Gabriel could only nod. She looked back at the datapad and saw the next bunch of files were about the Shinto Religion and how their five principal clans had conspired and murdered the unfavorable recipient of the Vermillion Bird, Akeno's mother, and handed Akeno to the Devils to be reincarnated to rob her of her birthright.
It left only their own twisted and cruel candidate as the last choice, which the Vermillion Bird had to take, and they fully controlled her and the avatar of cleansing fire through her hate and fear.
“He... he's destroying the people's trust in everyone.” Gabriel said in a whisper.
Andromeda chuckled and took the datapad from her friend's hands. “He saw the huge backlash the hypocrites were heaping onto the Heaven Faction for what they did and it was way out of proportion, so he responded by saying that the other factions were just as bad. When they vehemntly denied it, he released the proof.”
Gabriel sat back and lifted her head once more to look up at the rings of Saturn in the sky. She deeply regretted falling from her own mistake of overreacting to the situation and then she regretted not accepting John's hand in friendship when he offered. She was sure that things would have been very different for everyone if she had.
“Come on, Gabby. You need to eat.” Andromeda said and stood. She took her friend's hand and led her over to where the living area was in the dome and the droids quickly filled the table with enough food to stuff an elephant.
Gabriel sat and started to eat as Andromeda told her about how long it was going to take before they could leave the dome. For some reason, Gabriel was in no rush to leave the cozy place she was in now. Maybe in a few years she might decide to try living somewhere else under the new sky she was slowly coming to adore.
*
The entire supernatural world was in an uproar. So many secrets had been dumped out for the public to see that all of the various ruling governments of all the supernatural people were scrambling around to try and head off all the riots and fights that the information had caused. It was all John Hansen's fault, too.
The worst part of the whole thing was that his company had received thousands of requests for ward schemes and protection spells. He would be beyond rich by the time he filled even a quarter of them and there was nothing the various governments could do to stem the tides. All of them were afraid of the other factions... and their own rulers... and rightly so.
The Four Satans of the Underworld were in a meeting and Serafall Leviathan was livid as she ranted about everything and stomped around the room. It was honestly cute as she puffed out her cheeks and looked like a chipmunk with nuts stuffed in its mouth.
“I'd tell you to calm down and relax, except I can't. This is a mess.” Sirzechs said, barely managing to stop imagining it was his balls in the tiny woman's mouth.
“A mess? A MESS?” Serafall yelled and did a few more stomps and puffed her cheeks out again. “What are we going to do about it?”
Sirzechs took a deep breath and smiled. “Nothing.”
Serafall stopped her tantrum to stare at him. “Excuse me? Did you just say to do nothing?”
Sirzechs let his smile grow into a grin. “As the Domestic Affairs Minister, my official stance will be this: We. Are. Devils.”
Serafall blinked her eyes at him and Falbium Asmodeus chuckled.
“That's brilliant, and that's shocking for me to say.” Ajuka Beelzebub said, which made Falbium chuckle more. “We tell the people to embrace it instead of deriding it. It's in our nature, after all.”
“Exactly. We are devils and can act like it.” Sirzechs said with a nod.
“I'm sold. Crisis over.” Falbium said and leaned back to cross his arms. “Wake me when the people respond.” He said and closed his eyes and went right to sleep.
Serafall opened her mouth to yell at him, then realized they were right. “Is it that easy?”
Ajuka nodded and stood. “I'll head to my labs and start spreading the word along the way. Have a good day.”
Sirzechs waved to his old friend and Serafall sat down beside him. “You might want to visit your sister and let her know the good news.”
Serafall smiled at him and a moment later, she disappeared in a teleportation circle.
Sirzechs stood and left the room, his wife and maid right behind him. He made it down the hallway and out into the main lobby of the government building before his Queen spoke.
“It really is brilliant.” Grayfia whispered and lightly touched his arm with affection. “Your plan will destabilize the other factions, since they are still reeling from all their dirty secrets being revealed.”
Sirzechs nodded and they went to his own office in another wing of the building. The door had barely closed when Grayfia jumped him and they tumbled to the floor as she tore their clothes off. She had always found power and intelligence were a huge turn on and his simple idea would put the Devil Race far above everyone else, because their actions were acceptable specifically because they were devils.
“I love you.” Grayfia said and then moaned as she sat down on her husband's hardness.
Sirzechs groped her breasts as she rode him as hard as she had the night their son Millicas was conceived. “I love you, too.”
He would never know their enthusiastic coupling was because John Hansen destroying everyone's reputations that really got his wife's motor running and she needed to be bedded immediately.
*
“Boop.” Eye said, smugly.
“Releasing all that information stirred the hornet's nest that much?” I asked and he beeped at me again. “All of them? Even the Norse Pantheon and the Greeks? Ha!” I barked the laugh. “I'm glad our plan worked so well. I'm glad the info that Loki himself arranged the murder of Odin's wife Frigga, with the help of Hades, actually made it to the old drunkard's ears. I'll have to thank Kalawarner for barhopping around and spreading that rumor.”
“Beep.” Eye said.
“Thanks, buddy. She loves Belgian Chocolate.” I said and checked the holotable again. “Have the stealth drones track down the people behind the scenes trying to cover things up. We already have the names of the worst offenders, so keeping them under surveillance is our best shot at fixing things.”
“Beep.” Eye said and the holotable showed the drones being transported to various places around the world and the Underworld.
“You have to love overcharged portkeys that can traverse dimensional barriers.” I said and brought up a holographic keyboard and started typing. “They are all still online, even the ones in the pocket dimensions.” I muttered and nodded. I sent several commands, just to ensure it was real-time responsive and there was no lag in the transmissions.
“Boop?” Eye asked.
“Armed and ready, my friend.” I said and dismissed the keyboard and sat back. “Trace the hacking programs back to where the data miners found everything and have fun.”
“Beep beep.” Eye said and his much larger drone floated over to the patio doors and they opened for him. His engines spooled up with power as he reached the middle of the yard and then he zoomed up into the air and out of sight.
“That wasn't what I meant.” I said with a chuckle and cycled the holotable display through several programs and settled on the one monitoring Gabriel.
The beautiful woman turned her head to the camera and smiled at me.
I hit the button to communicate. “How do you catch me looking at you every time I do?”
Gabriel giggled with a small blush. “That's a secret.” She said in a teasing voice.
“You're happier today.” I commented.
Gabriel nodded. “I just had a visit with Raphael.”
“You did?” I asked, surprised. That was three of the Great Seraphs of Heaven that had visited her so far. I guess they miss her a lot more than we all thought they would.
Gabriel smiled shyly. “You really don't know who comes or stays inside the room you made for me.”
That I had to chuckle after hearing. “You've been my guest for a month and you still can't believe I actually give you privacy whenever you want it?”
Gabriel blushed and looked away from the camera. “John, I... I'm sorry.”
“I know.” I responded.
“No, John. I mean it. I'm sorry.” Gabriel said and took a deep breath. Her large chest heaved and the normal blouse she wore stretched out and almost popped open. Almost. She looked back at the camera and smiled. “I was wrong to be angry. I was wrong to act the way I did. I was wrong to blame you for not falling for our tricks and I was wrong to blame you for telling everyone about it.”
I sat there for a few seconds before I said anything. “You know, repenting doesn't actually work with the Heaven System damaged.”
Gabriel startled slightly, then she groaned and sighed loudly. “How? How do you know everything?”
“Gabriel, I've had eons to hone my information gathering skills. I am always going to find the information I need, it just takes time and effort. In this case, sneaky effort.”
“Wh-what?” Gabriel asked, confused.
I couldn't resist showing off and held a hand out towards the floor. I created a magical stealth drone, unarmed this time, and cast the Portus spell on it. I created a box of chocolates and some daisies to set on top and then sent it on its way.
Gabriel startled when the thing appeared beside her with the gifts. “What... what...”
“Surprise.” I said. “As long as I have proper coordinates, I can send them anywhere.”
Gabriel sucked in a sharp breath. “You... you...”
“I have a stealth drone plugged into your Father's chair.” I told her and her mouth dropped open. “It's quite the system he set up, I must say. Ingenious, really. Power imbuing, Sacred Gear implantation, soul creation. It's all very fascinating.”
“J-J-John, you... you... you can't! Father's work! You CAN'T!” Gabriel yelled in horror.
I thought about letting her freak out about it some more, then chuckled instead.
Gabriel stilled, clearly shocked that I would laugh at her.
“My dear Gabriel, like I told you before when I brought you there to Haven, I'm not changing his work. I'm fixing it.” I said and she made a strangled sound before she fainted.
“Jesus, John.” Andromeda said and walked into the camera's view. “Are you trying to kill her?”
“No, I'm just giving her the bigger shocks first.” I said and Andromeda laughed as she picked the Fallen Angel up and laid her down on the couch she had been on. “Do you want to tell her I actually fixed it?”
“Good god, no!” Andromeda exclaimed and sat down next to her friend. She pet the golden hair and smiled down at her. “How did you do it?”
“I cheated, of course. There was a huge hole in the programming, kind of like the Evil Pieces. Eye and I have been picking away at those nasty things for years in accelerated time... decades, really... and Panacea and I have finally finished working on the last specimen we needed.”
“What was that?” Andromeda asked and looked at the camera.
“A King Piece recovered from Ajuka's ex-assistant's lab.” I said.
She didn't react like the others I told, namely my wives Sona and Ravel, because they freaked out at the implications that the top teams in the ratings games and nearly all the heads of the Old Satan Faction Families all had one as well.
“Inside it was the last bit of programming language we couldn't figure out. Once we had the primer, we figured out the lock and key for the whole thing. The process, the changes, the mutations, the inherent subliminal programming to force obedience in weaker minds, punishments for disobeying, magic system installations, everything.”
“Oh.” Andromeda said, her voice low. “Now what?”
“Now I fix everything.” I said without a hint of arrogance.
“How?” Andromeda asked.
“The first step is right there under your hand.” I said and Andromeda looked back down at her friend, her hand still petting the woman's hair. “Load her into yourself and bring her back to Earth. I'll meet you at the hangar.”
Andromeda didn't say anything for a moment, then spoke. “Can I stay with her?”
I somehow knew she meant a lot more than just accompanying her. “Of course you can. I'll have everything ready for you both by the time you get here.”
Andromeda's smile lit up the room. “See you soon.”
*
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Panacea asked me as she added the final bits to the prepared item our last experiments let us create. The breakthrough we made was going to change everything.
I looked upon the slightly glowing figure we had just removed from the maturation chamber. The peaceful sleeping face was one that I had talked to on and off over the last month. I had to modify a separate dimensional space to grow the blank for as long as was needed to accept the age and power of who would be inhabiting it.
“It's the final test.” I said and held my hand out to her.
“I don't know if you're brilliant or crazy to believe that injecting the original body's DNA into the alteration piece will ensure that whomever accepts it will not change races and it will only enhance their abilities.” Panacea said and placed the glowing white King Piece in my hand.
I was surprised when her fingers touched mine and she didn't flinch.
“How can you be so powerful with so many abilities and still be a normal human?” Panacea asked me.
“I'm just lucky I guess.” I said and placed the piece against the skin between the massive breasts.
The piece easily slipped inside and the glow of both doubled for several seconds and both Panacea and I watched all of the monitoring equipment. Nothing really changed, especially the flat brainwave pattern, and the background energy only rose a degree before settling again.
“You were right. With no active intelligence for the programming to interact with, it shut down immediately and changed nothing.” Panacea said.
“With nothing to install itself into, all it can do is set the system standards and wait for a controlling intelligence to take over.” I said and nodded several times as I checked and double checked the readings. “All right, everything is stable.” I stepped back and turned away from the bio-bed. “Keep an eye on things and I'll be right back.”
Panacea placed a hand on my shoulder and I stopped to turn and faced her. “John, you know what this will mean when it's revealed.”
I smiled and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I know better than you think I do.”
Panacea chuckled and let my shoulder go. She rolled her eyes at me and shooed me away.
I left the basement lab and then apparated to the hangar. I arrived just in time, because the doors opened and the disguised harrier jet floated inside and the doors shut. The camouflage dropped and Andromeda's Firefly body landed before the cockpit ramp dropped down.
“Hello, John.” Andromeda said as she and Gabriel walked down the ramp to me.
“J-J-John.” Gabriel whispered and her face flushed red.
“Ah, you did tell her.” I said and Andromeda nodded.
“It can't be true.” Gabriel whispered and neither of them saw Andromeda's fusilage shrink down to the size of a model. “It can't be. A human can't... it... it's not possible.”
I put a hand on her shoulder and on Andromeda's. “In God's own words, everything under Heaven is possible.”
Gabriel almost choked at me saying that and I apparated us to my living room, the ship included. I didn't want to give anyone a chance to back out of what I had planned and picked up the ship. Andromeda saw it and her mouth dropped open.
“Come on.” I said and levitated them down the stairs to the basement and I brought them inside.
“That's technically kidnapping.” Panacea said with a smile.
“I call it creative convincing.” I joked and she laughed. I brought my hostages over to the bio-bed and they finally saw what was there.
“What did you DO?!?” Gabriel gasped when she saw a perfect copy of herself laying there.
“Fixing a mistake.” I said and took out the heavily modified mental essence transferring device I had first devised back in the Stargate Universe to save Gloria's sanity and gave her a new body.
“I... I... I don't understand.” Gabriel asked as she stared at herself.
“I never intended to cause anyone to fall when I wanted to confront Michael about all the mistakes his faction have made in the world and with humanity.”
“He wanted to propose solutions.” Panacea said and touched Gabriel to move her to float above her new body. “Unfortunately, the meeting went off the rails before it even started, despite all of his preparations to keep the place safe from intrusion.”
“I completely missed the fact that the people wanting the meeting wouldn't act the way I thought they would. My plans fell through and now here we are.” I said and hooked the machine up to the body's temples. Using the nervous system as a pathway through hands took way too long.
“The world is a mess and it's all his fault.” Panacea said and stepped back. “The energy transfer is going to be high frequency, so I suggest closing your eyes.”
“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked, nervously.
“I told you. Fixing a mistake.” I said and attached the other part of the machine to Gabriel's temples. It had a failsafe and wouldn't activate without an external person hitting the button to initiate the transfer.
“But... but... I fell! How can you fix that?” Gabriel asked and her raven wings popped out.
“By giving you a body that hasn't.” I said and hit the button.
Gabriel opened her mouth to yell something, probably disbelief, then a bright light covered both her and the body.
“Yeeeoowww!” I yelped and jumped back as I rubbed my now burned eyes.
Panacea chuckled and touched my hand to reform my eyes. “I warned you.”
“I thought you were warning Gabriel.” I told her, honestly.
Panacea smacked me upside the head. “You're still human, remember? Never look into the light!”
I chuckled and stayed looking at her instead.
“It's dying down.” Andromeda said and I waited for it to visibly die down before I turned back to look.
“Holy crap.” Panacea said with awe.
My own eyebrows rose at seeing an emaciated corpse floating above the brightly glowing Gabriel. I quickly went over and disconnected both of them from the machine and stored it and the corpse. She did not need to see what a divinely created body looked like with its sustaining energy completely drained. None of us wanted to see it, either.
Gabriel's eyes slowly opened and they glowed gold as well. “John?”
“Yes, Gabriel?” I asked and leaned over her.
“Why do I feel like Father has forgiven me?” Gabriel asked.
Both Panacea and Andromeda gave me odd looks.
“That's because according to the Heaven System, he has.” I said and pet her hair. “You genuinely repented for your sin and you meant it, even though you believed the system didn't work.”
Gabriel almost purred under the touch of my hand. “J-John, you... you need to stop that. I... I like you, but... even if it might be worth it, I... I don't want to give in to my base desires and fall again.”
I smiled and bent down to kiss her cheek. “I don't deserve to wallow in your heavenly pleasures, either.”
Gabriel gasped and Panacea laughed.
Andromeda grabbed me by the back of the shirt and yanked me away from the bed. “JOHN!”
I laughed as well. “I'm joking, of course. Gabriel can spend time with anyone she wants to. I'm not her keeper.”
“What?” “WHAT?” “HA HA!” Andromeda, Gabriel, and Panacea said at the same time.
“Well, I offered sanctuary to the Fallen Angel Gabriel. Since she no longer exists, then our deal has to end.” I said and motioned to Gabriel. “Go ahead, Arch-Angel Gabriel. Stand up and spread your wings.”
Gabriel laid there and stared at me with shock on her face.
“Come on, come on! We want to see them deployed.” I said and pushed Andromeda over to her. “Help your friend up.”
Andromeda walked over to the bed and did as I asked.
Gabriel sat up and looked at her hands that were still slightly glowing gold. “What is going on?”
“We're waiting for a show.” Panacea said and patted her hand. “It's all right. You trusted John to keep you safe and Andromeda to keep you company. You can keep trusting them.”
Gabriel looked up from her hands and saw Andromeda's happy smile. “O-okay.”
Andromeda and Panacea stepped back and Gabriel slid off the bed and stood up. She closed her eyes for a moment and the glow increased and she gasped as twelve brightly glowing gold wings popped out of her back. She opened her eyes and the wings folded around her and she ran her fingers over the soft feathers.
“How do you feel?” Panacea asked her and stepped close to touch her arm.
“I... I feel... divine.” Gabriel said with a beaming smile and looked right at me. “John, thank you.”
I waved her thanks away. “It was my fault it happened. I'm just glad this worked.”
Gabriel nodded. “I won't waste this chance.” She said wit determination. “I will be more devoted to His cause and...”
“No, you can be however you like. Don't restrict yourself needlessly.” I corrected her.
“Needlessly?” Gabriel asked, a frown forming on her face. “How can you say that following His word is needlessly restrictive?”
I took out a golden feather and cast the Portus spell on it. “Because his 'word' is from millennia ago and is completely idiotic. He didn't take into account that after thousands of years of observing humanity, that his angels would eventually become people, too. They have always had needs and desires, so telling them they can't even try them without falling is what caused so many to fall before and after his own fall.”
Gabriel's face turned angry and she yelled as she lunged at me and slammed her fist into my face. My cheek shattered and I was flung across the lab and into the wall. I had previously padded it and cushioned it, exactly for this purpose. The newly created Arch-Angel looked shocked.
“OH NO! I'm going to fall again!” Gabriel shouted and dropped to her knees with tears rolling down her face.
“You fucking bastard, John!” Andromeda exclaimed and dropped to her own knees and hugged her sobbing friend. “How could you do this to her?!?”
I pulled myself out of the wall's padding and walked over to them. Panacea reached for me to heal me and I shook my head at her. I stepped close to Gabriel and knelt in front of her and Andromeda.
“Get away from us!” Andromeda spat at me.
“That's a lot of emotion for a mobile hologram to express for an Arch-Angel.” I pointed out.
“Shut up! She's becoming a Fallen Angel again!” Andromeda shouted in my face.
“Is she?” I asked and nodded at Gabriel's back where her wings were still deployed. They were also still golden in color and softly glowing. I reached out and touched Gabriel's chin to lift it from Andromeda's shoulder.
“N-n-no, don't look at me.” Gabriel whispered and more tears came from her eyes. “I'm hideous.”
“You are, and will always be, the most beautiful angel in Heaven.” I said and leaned in to lightly kiss her forehead. “Look at your hands. Look at your wings. Look at your soul.”
Gabriel's tears slowed down as she did as I asked. Her hands were first as she let her death grip on Andromeda go. Her wings were next and a look of wonder came over her face. When she closed her eyes and felt inside of herself, her beaming smile was back on her face. She opened her eyes and saw my crushed cheek and touched it. It was healed after a brief golden glow.
“You let me hit you.” Gabriel said, her voice sure as her tears dried up and disappeared.
“I deserved it, since I should have caught you when you attacked me the first time. It was my mistake when I attacked and hurt you, causing your fall, and I knew you needed to have some payback.” I said and stood up. I held a hand down to her and wiggled my fingers at her.
Gabriel's beaming smile stayed on her face as she took my offered hand of friendship and let me help her stand up. “You're a good man, John.”
“Not really; but, I try to be. It's all I can do is try.” I said and held a hand down to Andromeda, whom was still knelt on the floor.
“I messed up.” Andromeda said and looked up at me, her face sad. A hologram couldn't cry, though. “I should have trusted you and I didn't. I forgot that...”
“Enough!” I nearly shouted and she jerked as if slapped. I took her hand and forced her stand up. “All you did was prove that you would stand and fight against your own creator for someone you cared about, no matter the consequences.”
“But...” Andromeda started to argue.
“I think that's good enough for me.” Panacea said with a smile. “I have no more objections about what you want to do.”
“Thank you.” I said and let Gabriel's and Andromeda's hands go and walked around them, hit a button on the wall, and a second bio-bed slid out with a body inside. “I believe someone else needs to have their consciousness transferred into a real body.”
The mobile emitter flickered several times and we all saw the shocked look on Andromeda's face before the hologram deactivated. I chuckled and summoned it to my hand, attached it to the ship to make sure her entire consciousness was there, and hooked it up to the transfer machine.
There was no bright light this time, since the energy state was much different than the energy an Angel contained. The body that looked just like Andromeda opened her eyes and she sucked in a sharp breath for the first time.
“Easy now. Relax.” I said calmly and motioned for Gabriel and Panacea to come close. “Everything will be both new and different, since this is a heavily modified cyborg and android combination body.”
“Wha.... whghshs....” Andromeda swallowed and looked serious for a second. “What did you... use as a base?”
I nodded at Gabriel and both of them gasped. “Panacea? How do things look?”
Panacea's fingertips lightly brushed Andromeda's arm and she nodded. “Everything's good.”
“Well then, welcome to the world of the living and breathing.” I said and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “By the way, it really sucks sometimes.”
Andromeda made an odd sound.
Was she trying to laugh? I asked myself and grinned at her. “Anyway, I think it's time you two went back home.”
All three women stared at me and looked surprised.
“What? Haven's yours now. Go enjoy it and see what the next visitor says when they meet Gabriel again for the first time and she can introduce them to her reborn angel self and a new angel.”
Gabriel gave a squeal of delight and hugged Andromeda. “I can't wait for them to meet my best friend!”
I took out the gold feather again and handed it to them. “You know the password.”
Andromeda and Gabriel held the thing delicately between them. “Home is where the heart is.”
The two of them disappeared in a swirl of a portkey and the lab became quiet.
“So.” Panacea said and touched my previously crushed cheek. She shook her head and let my face go. “You're crazy. She could have killed you.”
“No, she couldn't.” I said and turned to walk away, then I stopped and took out another white King Piece. “Would you mind?”
“You are definitely crazy.” Panacea said and put her hand on mine and touched the King Piece at the same time. The item glowed for a moment and then changed to a dull grey.
“Thank you.” I said and tucked it away and left the lab. I had a few more things to do before I needed to go to school again. Luckily, my wife ran the school and could excuse me for weeks at a time. As long as I kept up with the assignments and wrote the tests on their assigned days, everything was good.
“Beep.” Eye said and floated behind me in his normal drone when I reached the living room.
“It worked.” I said and flopped down onto my couch and laid down. That had been a lot more stressful than it should have been and I was wiped out emotionally. “Gabriel will let Michael know that Haven is now exclusively a part of their domain.”
“Beep?” Eye asked and settled beside the couch.
“You can send Mittelt a message about it and she can let the head of the Grigori know. I think Mars is getting to the stable atmosphere stage and we can introduce the plant life needed to metabolize everything in a few days. I can add the larger lakes this weekend.”
Eye beeped several times and I patted him and turned on the television. The basement door opened and a set of footsteps came up the stairs. I turned my head to look and saw Aika wearing a housecoat and nothing else.
“Panacea told me.” Aika said and climbed on top of me and cuddled into me. “It's coming to an end soon, isn't it?”
“Yes.” I said and didn't bother sugarcoating it. “It's a mess that needs to get messier before it can be cleaned up.”
“How long?” Aika asked me and watched the television with the volume turned down.
“A week or two. The other planets are nearly ready to have the atmosphere and terraforming machines dismantled and everything else needs to be put into their final places. Once they are, I'll strike and then make the announcement about their new domains being available.”
Aika was quiet for quite some time and I didn't feel like speaking either.
“Beep.” Eye said.
“Of course he wants to go right now to check it out.” I said with a sigh. “Tell Azazel he can come along when I seed the planets with vegetation.”
“Beep.” Eye said and silence filled the room again.
An hour later, Aika spoke. “Will it work?”
“It will. Completely.” I said with finality.
“What about the people that don't want their sacred gears?” Aika asked.
“I'll be removing them. The extractor was one of the easiest things to tear down and rebuild to work right. Azazel called me a genius for getting it to work without killing the host.”
“You're not a genius. You just know a lot of things.” Aika said with a small smile.
“That's what I keep telling everyone.” I said and gave her a kiss. “Do you want to stay here or head to bed?”
Aika looked back at the television with nothing on it and then at me. “It's a difficult choice.”
I huffed a laugh and she smiled at teasing me. I picked her up and carried her like a princess to my normal bedroom in the house and not into a time-compressed or expanded room. Sometimes taking things slow was better than rushing.
Getting a good night's sleep with someone you loved was the best.
*
Repeating high school wasn't as boring as most people believed. Not only were the subjects taught slightly different because I was in another country, how they were presented was also enlightening. Having a pretty teacher deliver the material also helped quite a bit, too. The best part about that? She knew she was good looking and used that to her advantage.
The girls in the class looked up to her as an icon of what to strive for, both fashion-wise and appearance-wise, and the boys admired her for the same things as she kept their attention. She was an effective teacher, even when the subjects were ones the other students didn't really care about.
Miss Yamanaka pushed through and finished the morning's lessons just as the bell rang. She let out a relieved sigh, mostly because we all listened to her and took extensive notes. As I passed her desk in the throng of students leaving her classroom, I stopped and dropped off one of my dessert containers. She gave me a beaming smile in return and I leaned over slightly to talk to her about the last lesson.
“Down boy!” Aika said and smacked my shoulder. “She's married, so no flirting.”
Most of the girls giggled and the teacher blushed.
“Oh, no. Foiled again by common sense and decency. However will I survive the loss?” I said, my voice flat. My deadpan delivery made everyone laugh out loud, even the teacher.
Miss Yamanaka's beaming smile came right back. “Thank you for keeping him on a tight leash, Aika.”
“Anytime, Miss Yamanaka. With me around, you never have to worry about this big lug trying to take advantage of how nice you are.” Aika said as she grabbed my collar and pulled me out of the room.
The giggles and soft laughter followed us all the way to the cafeteria. The other students spread out to claim tables with their friends as I sat with Aika at a table at the side of the room as I handed her my backpack.
“Thanks for going along with my joke.” Aika said and eagerly dug out the food containers to spread out on the table.
“It was a good one and it made Miss Yamanaka relax.” I said and looked up to see Murayama and Katase giving me furtive looks from across the room. I raised my hand to wave and both girls grabbed the girls beside them and they rushed over to my table.
Aika slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her bark of laughter at the girls reacting like that. Any form of acknowledgement seemed to set them off.
I rolled my eyes at her as several members of the Kendo Club settled down around us. “Ladies, please help yourselves. There's lots to share.”
“Thanks, John.” Katase said and the girls started going through everything and talking about the new bamboo swords the club replaced the older ones with. Apparently, they were tougher and didn't bend as much as the weaker ones, which was both better and worse in their opinion.
Aika kept softly laughing under her breath as we all ate the delicious food. She paused for a moment and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “I know you didn't intend for this to end up like a buffet with extra people.”
I smiled and plucked a few different things from several of the containers to fill my plate. “Sometimes things just work out that way.” I said, remembering how things were back in the Buffy universe with the Scooby Gang, and I popped a rice ball into my mouth. “We can sneak off and get some private time during the break.”
Aika kissed my cheek and went back to eating.
I felt several pairs of eyes on me and glanced around. I noticed that Akeno, Koneko, and Kiba were giving me very pointed looks. This was the first time they had been in the cafeteria since the announcements about all the bad things that all the different groups and factions had been up to. I could almost feel them begging me to do something that they could confront me about.
I slid my plate aside to Aika and she gave me a questioning look. “I'll meet you in class.”
Aika looked over to where I nodded my head and she hummed acknowledgement.
I stood and bowed my head at the other girls at the table. “Ladies, please excuse me. I have an errand to run and I can't enjoy your company for as long as I wanted to.”
All the girls blushed and they mumbled that it was okay.
I walked around the table and then walked faster as I strode across the room. I didn't head for Akeno, though. I went for the door instead and the three Devils shot to their feet and also walked fast to try and catch up with me. I did it this way specifically so that they couldn't confront me inside the cafeteria in front of so many witnesses.
I slowed down at the end of the empty hallway and the three of them surrounded me. Akeno opened her mouth to speak and I held a hand up to stop her, then I apparated the four of us to the roof of the Occult Research Club. The three of them jerked as if struck and their heads swivelled around at the sudden change of location.
“Now that no one else can listen in, go ahead and tell me what you want to say.” I said.
“How did you do that?” Koneko asked as her ears popped out and they turned like radar dishes, as if she couldn't believe she was suddenly somewhere else.
“Teleportation.” I said and looked at Akeno. “You first.”
“How could you do that to me?” Akeno almost shouted. “You've destroyed everything I've built since I escaped from my father's influence!”
I thought about confronting her about that, considering she was essentially running from herself and her heritage, then changed my mind. “If you hate your Fallen Angel heritage so much, I'll remove it from you.”
Akeno gasped and took a step back.
“I've made huge breakthroughs in science and biology. I can...” I paused to find the right word. “...purify you and you can become a full blooded Devil. I can even make you Rias' relative if you want.”
Akeno's knees gave out and she dropped to the roof as she stared at me with tears in her eyes.
“Pop over to my house after school and I'll have you fixed up in a few hours.” I said and looked at Koneko. “You're turn. What do you want to confront me about?”
“Is what you released true? My sis... sister protected me? She didn't... didn't...” Koneko stammered.
“It's all true. She didn't go insane from using her inherent power of Senjutsu. I also tracked down all the people involved and I have them under surveillance. As soon as I give the order, they'll be taken out for what they did to her and so many others.”
Koneko closed her mouth and gave me a stern look for several seconds before she nodded.
“I'm sure she'll sneak away from her current minders soon to find you.” I smiled at her tails wagging and turned to look at Kiba. “Last and least, it's your turn.”
Kiba ignored my insult as he formed a sword from the roof and grabbed the hilt. “Everyone gives me looks of pity because you told everyone what happened to me!”
I chuckled and he scowled at me. “Those aren't looks of pity, Kiba. They understand why you have always kept your distance from them and they don't blame you for your behavior.”
Kiba shook his head in denial as he took a fighting stance and angled his sword for a downward slash and thrust. “You are going to tell me where the other Excalibur fragments are.”
“What if I told you I already destroyed them all?” I asked him and his body jerked as if he had been slapped. “What about all the scientists involved in murdering all your friends? What about the exiled priest responsible for it in the first place? Or the bishops that approved it? The pope approving the research continuing to be used to create Holy Sword wielders? What about all of that?”
Kiba's arm shook and tears came to his eyes. “I... I just...”
“You wanted to hurt the source of all the pain. I know. I get it.” I walked over to him and place a hand on his hand that held the sword. I moved it aside and put my other hand on his shoulder. “I have them all tracked down. I'm just waiting for everything else to get into position and then everything will be handled.”
Kiba let the sword go and it dissolved before it hit the roof.
“You can help me toss the pieces into a forge to melt them down.” I promised and Kiba wiped at his eyes and nodded. I patted his shoulder and stepped back. “Is there anything else?”
The three of them didn't say anything, so I looked over at Akeno.
“I'll see you after school.” I said and gave them a wave.
“Gasper!” Koneko suddenly exclaimed. “He saw the files on the vampires and Dhampirs!”
“Oh! I almost forgot about him. Thanks for reminding me.” I said and took out one of the cat-shaped desserts I made. I tossed it to her and she had it half-gone in a second and then savored the tasty chocolate center by carefully licking it out.
I fought off my erection at seeing her do something so sexy and I walked over to the roof access door instead of apparating away. They didn't follow me as I went down the stairs and into the building. I went down the main stairway and easily found the sealed off room where Gasper was being protected from the outside. He had a severe case of agoraphobia and hates crowds, too.
I knocked on the door, since that was the polite thing to do.
“Koneko? Is that you?” A feminine voice asked.
“Koneko sent me. It's John Hansen.” I said and there was a squeak of surprise and then a thump. A detection spell showed me that he had fainted and was sprawled out on the floor. Another spell of detection showed me that the sealing spells were only on the door, since there were no windows, and that the walls only had basic reinforcement.
I shook my head at the weak containment protocols and transfigured the wall next to the door into another doorway. I easily stepped inside and then cancelled the transfiguration, since there was no need to let anyone know how easy it was to bypass their stringent protections that kept everyone safe.
I walked over to the unconscious body on the floor and looked down at what people would consider a 'trap'. Gasper was as slim and feminine looking as a girl of his size and age and he also wore the girl's uniform for Kuoh Academy. If you didn't know he had a penis hiding under his skirt, you could swear he was a girl, hence the 'trap' classification.
I picked him up in a princess carry and brought him over to his bed and laid him down onto it. I didn't have any bad thoughts about him, even after a brief flash of his panties. He went whole hog with the cross-dressing, didn't he? I chuckled at the thought of trying to manage a pair of balls while wearing women's underwear.
After a few moments, I fully considered his situation. I knew that he was more afraid of his Sacred Gear and hurting the people around him than he was about everything else, so I needed to deal with that first. People shouldn't be afraid of parts of themselves; but, sometimes there was no choice and they had to be removed.
Since I didn't want Gasper to suffer anymore, I took out the refined Sacred Gear extractor Azazel had been working on and I had finished and fixed. Parts from the mind-transference device were the keys to fixing it and now dangerous Sacred Gears could be safely extracted from the souls of their hosts and it wouldn't kill them.
I set the device on his chest and turned it on, then I waited for it to detect and find the gear. It only took about ten seconds before it lit up and showed what it was and what stage it had reached. The Forbidden Balor View was also known as 'The Evil Eye that Stopped the World' and it could freeze time around the wielder and allow them to move normally.
Luckily, it wasn't unlocked and had only accidentally activated a few times when Gasper was extremely nervous or scared. I hit the button to extract it and waited as the extraction device worked its magic. It would condense the gear into its purest form and then encase it inside a glass-like sphere shell, which made the thing easy to transfer to another host or to store it away, which was what I was going to do. Store it, that is.
Ten minutes later, the top of the device opened up and I took out the glowing blue sphere. I didn't bother examining it and stored it after a single touch, in case the violent and inhuman soul of the creature inside it tried to influence me.
I was going to have to seriously think about what to do with it, actually. It wasn't like I could just give it to someone else, since they would suffer from the same danger that Gasper suffered through. It was much too dangerous in its current form to put into any host.
I'll figure something out later. I thought and stored the extraction device and checked Gasper over medically and with a few spells. He was perfectly fine and his adrenaline levels had also dropped. I pet his hair and he made a soft sound, almost a moan, and rolled over to latch onto my hand with both of his and hugged it to his chest.
I barely held in my chuckle at him trying to nuzzling it. When his fangs popped out, it was no longer funny and I cast immobilize and stun on him to stop him from claiming me as a snack. I had no idea if his Dhampir abilities could bypass my own safeguards and I didn't want to take that chance.
I checked the time and saw I was late for class, since I hadn't heard the bell for lunch period ending, which meant the room had physical sound dampening materials in the walls. I left the room in the same way I entered, through the wall and not using the real door, and went up to the club's main room. Rias was there and she looked surprised to see me, even though Akeno was right there beside her.
“Hi, Rias.” I said and walked over to her desk. “Could I get a note from you about being late for class? I was helping Gasper with something and since he is a part of your club, I thought you could help me back.”
Rias blinked her eyes at me for several seconds and gave Akeno a questioning look.
“I don't know what he did for Gasper, only what he promised me, Koneko, and Kiba.” Akeno said in her defense.
Rias looked back at me and her eyes darted down to my waist and back to my face. “What exactly did you do to help my bishop?”
I did not miss the sexual implications and chose to ignore them. “Nothing much. I just removed his Sacred Gear and left him sleeping. Both the immobilization and stun should wear off in a few hours.”
“Excuse me?” Rias asked and stood, her face blank and her voice tinged with anger. “What did you say you did to my cute little harmless Gasper?”
I held up my hand and made an illusion of fang scrapes on the back. “He fainted and I was concerned, so I put him to bed and he tried to bite me.” It wasn't technically a lie and it gained the reaction I thought it would.
Akeno gasped and Rias lost some of the color on her face.
“It's all right, though. He's fine, I'm fine, and he no longer has to worry about hurting anyone with his Sacred Gear.” I said and pointed to some of the blank papers on her desk. “Can I have that note now?”
Rias sat down and picked up a pen, her hand slightly shaking, and she wrote out that I had been at the ORC doing her a favor. She handed me the note and I smiled and put it in my pocket.
“Thank you.” I said and walked out of the room. I didn't stay around to see what Rias and Akeno were going to do next, since I was pretty sure I knew what was going to happen. I was barely down the hallway at the far stairwell when the two beauties of the academy ran out of the club room and towards the other set of stairs to go check on Gasper.
I apparated to the alcove near the student council office and walked down the hallway and the stairs to the second floor to arrive at my classroom. I waited for the teacher to pause between sentences to lightly knock and then enter. I handed her a copy of the note and whispered an apology for being late. She nodded and waved me to my seat and continued the lesson as if I had always been there.
Aika gave me a raised eyebrow and I whispered a promise to fill her in later before I took my seat. The rest of the school day passed by before I knew it, even with the quick break with Aika in the girl's bathroom. We were both quite grateful that Aika loved swallowing everything.
I finished up our homework just as the bell rang to end the day and I handed mine to the teacher. She looked quite pleased that I had finished and then Aika added hers to the small pile on the desk. Miss Yamanaka smiled at her, too.
Aika and I left the room together and the other girls said goodbye and see you tomorrow to the both of us. We waved back and I promised to bring more food to share, even if I was spending lunch with Sona the next day.
“You're too good to us.” Katase said and blushed slightly, patted my arm, and left with her friends. Their giggles and the whispered teasing comments didn't make me nervous at all.
“So easily charmed.” Aika said with a smirk as she hugged my arm.
We left the school with a large group of students and we didn't talk much, except for my whispered story about what happened at lunch and what I did for Gasper. Aika looked both happy and sad about it and said she was glad she didn't have something like that inside of her to worry her like that.
I did not make a joke about having something else inside of her. No, I didn't. I sure as hell thought about it, though. Aika saw my face and laughed and smacked me for it, then she said it would have to wait anyways because I was going to be busy with Akeno. I gave her a very passionate kiss when we reached the house and she went inside to go down into the basement.
Barely a minute later, Akeno and Rias appeared in a teleportation circle beside me. Rias looked apprehensive and Akeno looked determined. I said nothing about Rias being there, since I assumed she wanted to be there for Akeno, and I waved them both inside. I took them to my secondary lab in the spare room and they both gasped at all the technological marvels there.
“Strip off and hop up on the bio-bed, please.” I said and sent a message to Panacea before I started up one of the pods and checked the monitoring equipment. “My assistant and partner will be here in a few minutes.”
Panacea came in about ten minutes later and stopped at the door to stare at the two naked beauties. “I'm not going to bother asking why you're both undressed.” She said and continued to walk over to me.
“Emotional support.” I said and I could tell that both Akeno and Rias were a little upset that I hadn't looked at either of them even once. “We're doing a DNA extraction, with a split and unravel to clean it of the Fallen taint, then we are mainlining the Devil DNA in her Evil Piece to finish it up.”
Panacea snorted. “Is that all?”
I smiled and gave her a one-arm hug. “We'll kick them out for the lengthy part and then bring them back in for the final procedure.”
“If you do that, they'll never know how much work we're doing to fix her.” Panacea said as she leaned against me. “But, it's your choice how much they participate.”
“Thank you.” I said and kissed her cheek. “Go ahead and start your part of this.”
“Thank you for your permission.” Panacea said, sarcastically.
“You're welcome.” I responded cheekily.
Panacea chuckled and walked over to Akeno and let her eyes wander over her very curvy female form, which made Akeno blush slightly and also look pleased. Panacea winked at her and placed a hand on her shoulder and closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Rias asked and I could hear the curiosity in her voice.
“Checking her over for birth defects, pre-cancer cells, hidden disease markers in her chromosomes, and if her children might inherit something nasty.” Panacea said and both Akeno and Rias caught their breaths. “Don't worry, it's just a basic screening I do for everyone around here.”
“But... but... we... I...” Rias stammered.
“You're here, aren't you?” I said and walked over with the sample containers. “Akeno, when Panacea's done...”
“I'm done.” Panacea said and stepped around her and held a hand out to Rias.
“...can you sit up and deploy your wings? We need a sample of both of them to make sure we remove everything after we're done.”
Akeno sat up and gave Rias a pleading look.
“It's all right. He's helping you remove it.” Rias reassured her and accepted Panacea's hand.
Akeno sighed and concentrated for a second, then a bat-like wing popped out of her back on the right side and a feathered wing popped out of the left side. “Will it hurt?”
“No, it never does.” I said and pet her bat-wing. She shivered and blushed as she gave me a pouty look. I smiled at her and used a touch of numbing fluid before I sliced off a very small piece near the tip and then I healed her with a touch of bacta from a tiny needle and ended the numbing effect.
Akeno's eyes widened at seeing her wing healed immediately and she pulled it close to her face and ran her fingers over the spot. “H-how did you do that?”
“A special formula that's been enhanced to the extreme, thanks to experimenting with Phenex Tears.” I explained and the two Devils gasped in shock, because they knew how expensive Phenex Tears were. I went around the bio-bed and used a bit of numbing fluid on the smallest feather's end by the wing where it was attached and plucked it. A touch of healing bacta and a tiny feather grew in its place.
“There we go. Two main samples.” I said and put them aside. “You can lay back down.”
Akeno put her wings away and almost flopped backwards on the bio-bed, making her large breasts jiggle like crazy. My eyes dropped to watch their quite fascinating movements and her soft giggle let me know that she did it on purpose.
I shook my head at her antics and took out an empty needle and some numbing fluid. I drew some blood from her arm and stepped back, added it to the other samples, and hit the start button on the scanner. Ten minutes later, it beeped and a hologram of Akeno appeared above her. Both Devil girls gasped again and stared at it.
“It's great, isn't it?” Panacea said and let Rias' hand go to reach into the hologram and she turned it around to have it face away from her. “Secondary level, please. Focus on the lower back.”
I did as she commanded and it showed off the spots where the wings would deploy from.
“As you can see, wings are both physical and magical in origin. Without a focal point in place, thanks to the Devil physiology, it would take much more magic to manifest the external growths for wings.” Panacea said. “And yes, before you ask, the wings are real growths, so they can be damaged significantly and also torn off. Please do not let that happen. They will take a long time to grow back to full strength, even with healing.”
“U-understood.” Rias said, her face slightly pale.
“They seem to be the same for both types. That's interesting.” I said and zoomed in. “Are the manifestations mostly psychosomatic in origin or energy based? Could they be influenced with mental manipulations, mainly convincing someone they will appear a certain way, or would actual DNA keys need to be introduced for them to be accessed?”
Panacea looked at them and nodded. “It's both, like I said. The body needs the building blocks to use before any argument about the mind can be applied.” She said. “There are no physical pathways for energy to travel along, even with two clearly separate sources. Our previous hypothesis is correct, John. It's the body's central nervous system that's used as the pathway needed to manifest power effects.”
“Ha! I knew it.” I said and turned off the hologram. I stepped close to the table again and bent over slightly to look down at Akeno's face. “Thank you very much for letting us examine you like this. You've helped us a lot more than you'll ever know.”
Akeno couldn't resist teasing me and cupped her large breasts and shook them for me to stare at. “Ufufufu. You're verrrry welcome, Johhhhnnn.” She said sexily and stared at me as I stared back.
A snort from Panacea ended our staring contest. “I'll add physics defying breasts to the medical notes on her physique, shall I?”
“Definitely.” I said, not backing down from her challenge. “We'll have to keep that in mind as we fix her problem.”
“I'm sure you'll have no trouble keeping her breasts on your mind.” Panacea joked and walked around the table to pick up the samples and went over to the DNA sequencer. “We're going to be busy for a while, so you can go ahead and get dressed.”
“If you want to. We don't judge people here.” I joked as well and Akeno laughed her 'ufufufu' laugh, which jiggled her breasts nicely.
“I think we will, since we're stepping out into the living room.” Rias said and handed Akeno her school uniform before getting dressed herself.
Akeno sat up and looked at her panties and bra for a moment before she handed them to me. “I'm sure you can put these to better use that I will.”
I chuckled and put them into my pocket. “I'll be sure to treat them with the proper respect.”
Akeno did her fake laugh and slipped on her skirt and her blouse. Her breasts had jiggled under her blouse a lot when she walked before, especially with the corset helping to present them to the world. Without a bra? The cloth of her blouse strained and popped two of the buttons just from walking over to the door. Her massive chest moved and shifted around a lot more when unrestrained.
“I don't believe you thought that decision through.” Rias said and was clearly amused as Akeno had to cup her breasts to stop them from escaping her shirt.
Akeno blushed and genuinely laughed as the two girls left the room and shut the door behind them.
“You know they're going to be shocked you can grow a new body for her.” Panacea said.
“They won't know about that part.” I said and she gave me a pointed look. “I'm going to stun them and do the switch. Neither of them will ever know how we removed her Fallen Angel half.”
Panacea shook her head and the DNA sequencer beeped at her. She took out the two blood samples that used to be one. “Without Baraqiel's DNA, she's going to look more like a clone of her mother than anything else.”
“That won't be a problem for her. Akeno loves her mother a lot more than she hates her father.” I said and brought the cleaned blood sample over to the maturation chamber. We set it up and initiated the procedure to create a test tube baby. Since Akeno was only 18, it wasn't going to take long to grow her a new body that was going to be purely human.
*
Rias sat beside her best friend on the ridiculously comfy couch and was outwardly happy while inside she was secretly worried. She knew Akeno hated her father for abandoning her and letting her mother get murdered, which transferred into hatred for all Fallen Angels, because they were all traitors to Heaven.
The thing she was worried about was her friend losing a full half of her abilities and her heritage. Hatred or not, her Fallen half had been a part of her for her entire life and was an essential part of who she was. If that hatred was removed, what kind of person was Akeno going to be?
“I'm not going to change, Rias.” Akeno said, voicing her thoughts. “I've wanted this ever since... since...” She paused and took a deep breath. “I'm removing the shackles my father gave me.”
“Akeno...” Rias started to say.
“It's always held me back. I can't... I couldn't use what he gave me. It feels like... like I'm betraying my mother's death by using his power.” Akeno confessed. “I can't train my hardest and I can't use all of my magic, and that's all because of him.”
Rias sighed and put an arm over her shoulders and hugged her close. “You know it never mattered to me, right? You're my best friend and the sister I never had and always wanted.”
Akeno started to blush and then smirked as she turned her head to give her full attention to Rias. “Ufufufu. You've always wanted a sister to eat you out and finger your cute little asshole?”
Rias made a choking sound and her face flushed to a crimson red that was the same color as her hair. Akeno laughed at making her best friend react like that and put her arms around her and kissed her. Rias made an oddly needy sound and then kissed her back. The two of them started making out, with a bit more passion than usual and a little desperation on Akeno's part.
Before she knew it, Rias was on her back and Akeno's tongue and fingers were doing exactly what she just talked about. She moaned and groaned as Akeno expertly drew out her orgasm and made her yell her best friend's name.
Akeno laid down beside her after putting her skirt back into place and cuddled in. She was nervous about whatever procedure John was going to do and she needed the distraction of getting Rias off. Plus, she really did have a cute little asshole and she loved how Rias always reacted when she played with it.
“R-Rias, I... I...” Akeno tried to say what she was feeling and faltered.
“I know.” Rias said and gave her a tender kiss. “No matter what happens, you will always be my Akeno. Ever since we were little girls, you have been a part of my family and I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Akeno said with tears in her eyes.
Rias gave her several more tender kisses and held her close as they waited for however long they needed to for John to be ready for them.
“We're ready for you.” Panacea said and both girls jumped at the scare and let out squeals of fright as they fell off the couch and onto the floor. The healer laughed and walked away down the hallway to the spare room and went inside.
“H-how? It's only been... how long has it been?” Rias asked.
“I don't know. I was a little busy to watch the time.” Akeno said shamelessly and stood up before she helped Rias stand as well. They fixed their clothing and followed Panacea into the spare room.
“Don't worry, this part won't hurt a bit.” John said as soon as he saw them and then there was nothing but darkness for Akeno and Rias.
*
Akeno floated back into consciousness and she couldn't quite remember where she was. The bed was firm and also warm, so she knew she wasn't in her own bed. What had she been doing before... oh. She did Rias. She was always delicious, which she suspected was a Devil trait, and it was always great how the princess of the Gremory Clan squealed and squirmed under her tongue.
“Whatever put that smile on your face, you might want to keep it to yourself.” A male voice said.
Akeno gasped and opened her eyes to stare at John Hansen, only for everything that happened to come rushing back into her mind. He said he could fix her and she wasn't sure if it worked, because she didn't feel different. Or did she? How could she tell if she had lost the half of her that she hated so much?
“Can you sit up?” Panacea asked her and stepped close to help her. “Let us know if you feel disoriented, okay? You had to go through a lot to fix your body.”
Akeno sat up with the woman's hand on her bare back and her other hand on her bare arm. She glanced down and was surprised to see two half cups stuck to her breasts to both cover the nipples and to support her massive size.
“I had John make those for you, since we couldn't put your bra on while we operated.” Panacea said.
Akeno experimentally poked one of the cups and the top half of her breasts jiggled normally and also kind of stayed in place. “I want a thousand of them for myself and Rias.”
Panacea laughed and John let out a huge sigh.
“What is it?” Akeno asked.
“I bet him you would ask for that first instead of what happened during the procedure.” Panacea said and patted her arm. “There's a box of them by the door for you. One size fits all large sizes.”
“Thank you.” Akeno said and looked down at her waist. She was wearing her panties from before and she looked over at John.
“I said I would put them to good use.” John told her.
“I meant for you to keep them and play with them.” Akeno said, clearly disappointed.
“Who said I didn't?” John asked with a teasing smile.
Panacea swatted at him. “Don't tease the reborn pureblood Gremory Devil, John.”
Akeno gasped again and stared at her. A similar gasp came from the other bed as Rias sat up.
“What did you just say?” Rias asked, shocked.
“It's one of the things we've been working on and Akeno wanting to remove her Fallen Angel half gave us the perfect chance to try it on a Reincarnated Devil that already had an Evil Piece inside that hadn't gone stray.” John said and handed Akeno her school uniform. “Why don't you deploy your wings and give us all a show?”
Akeno only felt nervous for a moment before she concentrated. Her wings popped out even faster than they normally did and Rias made another gasp sound. Akeno wasn't sure why she reacted like that, since she claimed to always accept her, and she moved her wings forward to look at them... and froze. Four bat-like wings came into her vision instead of one bat-wing and one black-feathered wing.
“As you can see, you've increased in power significantly.” Panacea said and lightly caressed one of the wings, making Akeno shiver with pleasure. “They're also more sensitive for some reason.”
Akeno looked over at Rias. “Is that why you react more when I play with your wings?”
Rias nodded. “I thought it was just mine that did that; but, if your wings are also more sensitive, then that means...”
“...all of the Gremory women have a potential weakness with their sensitive wings.” Akeno said and pulled her wings in. “No one can ever know that.”
“Agreed.” Rias said and stood up to walk over to her friend. “How do you feel?”
“I... well, I... I don't really feel any different.” Akeno admitted.
“That's good.” “Very good.” Panacea and John said at the same time.
“You first.” John said and walked over to a cabinet. “I'll load up a care package for her, just in case.”
Panacea nodded. “If you don't feel any different, that's very good, because it means your Fallen nature hadn't been affecting you physically as much as we suspected. If it had, you might have felt disoriented and possibly dizzy from losing part of your sense of self and perhaps some hidden Fallen trait to keep you stable.”
Neither Akeno nor Rias told them about how much Akeno fought against her Fallen Angel nature.
“Or unstable.” John offered from across the room. “They aren't the most balanced people at the best of times.”
Rias made a snort sound and Akeno nodded. They both knew that some Fallen Angels were downright crazy.
“You might notice some behavioral changes over the next while, again because your Fallen Angel half might have been influencing you in subtle ways.” Panacea warned her.
“Like making you easy to anger, hornier around certain people, hungry around certain foods, things like that.” John said and walked over to give Akeno a carry-on bag that was filled with different things. He opened it up and showed her the contents.
“You can't!” Rias gasped when she saw what was on top. A box with two Phenex Tears inside.
John chuckled and showed off the medical supplies, potions for headache relief that the Sitri Clan were becoming famous for, and a few other things. “If you have any problems, any problems at all, don't hesitate to call. Our answering machine is on all day and night and we'll get back to you in a week or two.”
Panacea reached over and whacked him on the back of the head. “I said to stop teasing her.”
“Sorry, sorry.” John said with a laugh and closed up the bag. “If you call with a problem, I'll answer it, no matter where I am.”
Akeno blushed slightly at the promise. “I'll keep it in mind.”
John smiled and walked over to the door. “Panacea, let everyone know I'm heading to the Underworld to visit Ravel and will be back in the morning.”
“Will do.” Panacea said and watched him leave the room. She turned to Akeno and smirked at her. “Just so you know, being horny might count if he's in a good mood. Now get dressed and get out. I've been away from my wife for too long and I need to go apologize and then ravage her.”
Both Rias and Akeno quickly left at that prompt.
*
Sona sat at her desk and admired her husband as he easily talked to her Peerage as if they had known each other for years. He was such an easy man to get along with, as long as you didn't anger him. He could react unpredictably if you weren't careful and she had warned her Peerage and her family about it. He had been much more relaxed lately, however.
John paused his talk with her Queen and turned to her as he leaned over the desk. She puckered her lips automatically as he gave her a tender kiss and she couldn't stop her blush. Why did she react like that to his kisses every time? Her Queen giggled and it spread to the others, making her blush more.
“Is that why?” Sona asked him, almost desperate to know.
“Why what?” John asked her.
“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Sona asked back instead of answering.
“No, I know what you mean. The answer is yes.” John said and leaned back over the desk. “You know I'm sincere in wanting a random kiss from my beautiful wife.” He said and kissed her again. “You never deny me, no matter when I try it or where, even if it inconveniences you. I find that extremely endearing and we all love seeing that you enjoy it, too.”
Sona opened her mouth to refute that and saw the looks of adoration on the faces of her Peerage. They had been with her for years and knew her better than her own family, so she knew they wouldn't give John that look without a good reason. They really liked that she was happy and she couldn't deny it without lying.
“Mother has been pestering me to visit more often.” Sona said and changed the subject.
John chuckled and accepted the change without comment. “Is it because little Titanus is becoming a roaming mass of watery destruction while she babysits our son?”
All of Sona's Peerage members tittered and laughed at the question.
“She's had to replace over half of the furniture in the mansion already.” Sona said, proudly.
“Aren't his little tidal waves cute?” Tsubaki asked and all the girls laughed again as they agreed.
“And they're getting stronger.” Sona said and gave her husband a loving look. “They've already transferred the Heirship to him, since his clan trait is almost as strong as mine.”
“And he's only a year old.” John said, clearly also proud. “We did do good work, didn't we?”
Sona's loving look changed to a smirk. “Almost too well. With how your son with Ravel is also fairly strong in the Phenex Clan's Phoenix Flames, my mother has been almost beside herself trying to convince father to let her... ahem... dabble a bit on the incest side.”
John's mouth dropped open and all of the girls laughed, Sona included.
“Oh, don't worry. Father isn't that comfortable and secure in his relationship with my mother. It's one of the reasons she loves him so much, actually. He's very jealous.” Sona informed him and he relaxed. “She even tried to talk to my sister about producing an heir for her own name and title.”
“That's not going to happen.” John said, his voice sure. “Serafall pretty much hates my guts for stealing her Sona-Tan from her and causing her so much trouble.”
Sona nodded and finished off her delicious meal. How did he become such a great cook? She asked herself, then internally mocked herself. He could make expanded dimensional spaces with time compression. He had all the time in the world to become good at everything!
“Also, isn't it against current policy for a Satan to have a relationship?” John asked.
Sona huffed. “That's because Ajuka and Falbion are too busy and too lazy to bother chasing a woman. My sister claims the same thing, only we all know why she's never tried to nail down a man to have a relationship with.”
John reached over the table to take her hand. “You admitted that you know about it and you're not trying to deny it. Good for you.”
Sona gave him a stern look. “Even though I know you're sincere, that still sounds patronizing.”
John grinned at her. “It's a gift.”
“We want to return it!” Several of the girls said immediately and they all laughed.
John laughed as well and stood to lean over the desk. “On that note, I better go. I'll meet you after school and we'll spend the night at your parents.”
Sona blushed as he gave her another kiss and then he was out the door and out of sight.
“Is he getting sexier every time we see him?” Momo asked.
“More handsome?” Tsubaki asked.
“More personable?” Tsubasa added.
“More yummy and delicious!” Several of the others said at the same time and they all giggled and laughed. Some meant his cooking and some meant John himself. Either way, it was still funny.
Sona sat there and enjoyed the ambience that a happy Peerage was supposed to have. They were all friends and they all enjoyed each other's company. There were occasional conflicts, since that always happens with differing opinions, even among good friends. However, they always worked things out and remained happy and whole.
That was when Sona realized John hadn't suborned her connections to her friends or tried to control her interactions with others. He had pretty much slotted into her life with as little disruption as possible and even managed to bed her, marry her, and have a child, all without disrupting her personal and professional life.
How was it possible to love him so much more than she already did?
*
The next day, I visited the Dhampir's underground compound and told them about what I did to heal Gasper. One of them was pushed forward and she gave me a forlorn look. I cast several detection spells and checked her mind, only to find out that she was suffering from almost the same thing. Her sacred gear was ruining her life and had fractured her mind.
Valerie Tepes had the Sacred Gear known as Sephiroth Graal, or the Holy Grail of the Hidden World. It's powers were... broken. Completely broken. Valerie's version was a sub-species, meaning instead of producing a single golden cup that had life-giving properties, she could produce three of them instead.
She could summon souls of the dead, regenerate or create bodies, heal any damage, remove weaknesses, enhance bodies and souls, and also produce endless duplicates as long as the original soul wasn't damaged or destroyed. Unfortunately, it was all done at the cost of her sanity. The more you used it, the more corrupted by madness you became, since your mind was filled with information about the living and the dead every time one of the powers were used.
Like I said, it was broken. I brought her into one of the private rooms and spent several minutes just trying to talk to her and she was despondent, lacked higher emotions, and didn't care about anything. Her father and his faction had pretty much abused her powers for years to keep them in power and to make their enemies suffer.
So, I did the only thing I could. I asked her to produce one of her Holy Grails and stunned her and removed her sacred gear. Surprisingly, the cup stayed corporeal and I stored the sacred gear in my inventory.
With the thing that was hurting her out of her frail body, she almost seemed to diminish to the point of non-existence. I poured a Phenex Tear down her throat to heal her physical body after massaging her throat to make her swallow, then I wished for her mind to be fixed as I poured some of the white liquid in the Holy Grail into her mouth and made her swallow it, too.
I accepted the mental cost and headache when I felt the extra pressure in the front of my mind, since I already saw most of her life anyway, and smiled when I saw the soft glow of magic around her forehead. I kept slowly feeding her over the next half an hour and the liquid in the Holy Grail never reduced in amount. When the glow around her head faded, I stored the golden cup in my inventory.
A headache potion removed the pain and a brief meditation allowed me to shuffle off her lifetime of memories into a trash bin that I would work on deleting later when I had more time. I didn't forcibly wake her, since I was sure she needed the time to mentally adjust to what just happened to her. I left an alert ward on the room and left it to check on the other Dhampirs.
I removed three other Sacred Gears, common ones, and checked the physical and mental health of everyone there. By the time I was done, the alert ward told me Valerie was waking up. I went back to the room and went inside with several other young women nervously standing in the doorway. By their chosen outfits, they were the main caretakers for the younger members of their people.
There were also two older males wearing combat gear and carrying wooden stakes and holy water. Apparently, they were the disposal squad in case something bad happened to Valerie. I had shared my research with them about the vampires that had sired them and they all had agreed that when they died, none of them wanted to become a soulless beast that preyed on the humans.
“Hello, Valerie. Do you remember me?” I asked her as I sat beside her bed.
Valerie looked at me like she had never seen me before for several seconds, then her eyes widened and her breath sped up. “S-s-savior. You're our savior.” She whispered and the girls in the doorway made surprised sounds and then sounds of agreement.
I couldn't stop my smile at them choosing that as my title among them, since I really had saved them all from a terrible fate. Most of them were used as food and indiscriminately as bed partners, both males and females, since all of them were inordinately beautiful. Being slaves that cleaned and cooked for the other slaves was almost secondary to what they had been through.
“I'm glad you remember that much.” I said and reached over to run my hand through her hair.
Valerie let out a soft moan and leaned her head into my hand, surprising the girls and the two hunters behind them. “M-more. Don't stop. I feel... I feel... ohhhh.”
I had to hold in my chuckle at her getting off on just being petted on the head, just so she didn't think I was making fun of her. I was happy that her emotions had returned and she wasn't going to suffer anymore by being so detached from everything.
“Ladies, I hope you can keep an eye out for Valerie from now on. She's going to be a little touch starved for a while, until she can adjust to the new sensations.” I told them and they all made happy sounds.
One of them stepped back from the doorway and turned to the main gathering area. “The princess is okay! The savior fixed her!”
A loud cheer came from everyone and a celebration broke out.
“We'll take good care of her.” The maid in the front promised and stepped into the room.
“Casssssssie.” Valerie said, her voice slurred from the pleasure she never felt before. She held her arms out to the maid and made a grabbing motion.
Before I could stand up and move away from the bed, Cassie approached and Valerie pulled her onto the bed and started kissing her. They both started moaning and then they were naked and enthusiastically licking each other everywhere.
I kind of lost track of things for some reason as my mind focused on them having sex. That hadn't happened to me before and I wondered why what I was seeing was so fascinating, then Cassie's red bat-like wings popped out and a spiked tail grew out of the base of her spine.
Oh, she's half succubus. I thought, just as both she and Valerie pulled my pants down and started nuzzling my rock hard erection. Their cute little tongues felt absolutely wonderful and I was on the edge in only a few moments. “W-wait... I... I need to...” I started to say and didn't know what it was I was trying to say.
Both young women stopped and gave me looks full of love and desire. “What do you need to do to love us, master?”
I felt the command touch my mind and I answered it by producing two mutated Evil Piece Pawns that I had fixed to remove the enslavement parts. Both of them agreed immediately and became my Pawns, then I kind of blacked out when Valerie mounted me and my first load filled her up. My last conscious thought was that virgins couldn't get pregnant the first time they had sex... or could they?
When I woke up, my penis was a little sore from bite marks. I was also in bed with all five maids and Valerie Tepes. Fortunately, I hadn't broken my promise to Ravel and they were all my Pawns. Unfortunately, they were all pregnant, even Valerie.
Well, fuck. I thought and rubbed a hand over my face. The sweet smell of Cassie's succubus fluids lit up my sinuses and I shivered as my penis instantly became hard.
“Ohhhh.” Someone moaned and sat up from the pile with me still sheathed inside of her, only she was facing away from me. She started to slowly move up and down and moaned softly. “You're a beast. A total beast in bed.” She said between moans and sped up her movements. “I love you. I looove yoooou.”
I pretty much just laid there and let her have her fun. When I tried to grip her hips to help her, she swatted my hands away. It didn't take long before she came hard and her quivering body collapsed backwards onto my chest, her own modest chest heaving from exertion and pleasure. I hugged her and she didn't stop me this time.
“Now you can help me.” She said and turned her face to me and kissed me passionately.
I obliged, mostly because I was too far into this mess to back out now, and slowly pumped myself into her. As we went at it, the others eventually woke up and joined in as well. Being conscious for the small orgy was definitely a lot better than blacking out, let me tell you. They were all supernaturally strong, so they stayed tight down there no matter how hard I pounded them.
When we were done three hours later and each of them were satisfied and had goofy smiles on their faces, they professed undying love for me and promised to rule over their people as the first magical Dhampir coven, thanks to the enhancements from my Evil Pieces.
I didn't argue and gave each of them a kiss, promised to stay in touch, and left the compound with several jars of Cassie's fluids. It had given me several ideas and I wondered if it would work when combined with the updated bacta and the adjusted Miracle formula as a temporary booster. Could I successfully create magical viagra?
I also had to contact Sona and Ravel and the rest of my Peerage to let them know our family was going to get significantly bigger in a few months.
“Beep.” Eye said over my open comm signal.
“Yeah, I'll be ready soon. We'll head out to Mars first to start seeding the plant life and can pick Azazel up on the way.” I said and walked down the street. I could have apparated, teleported using Voyager 4, or driven on a motorcycle or in a car; but, I wanted to walk in the fresh air. I hadn't done that in a while and had been rushing everywhere to get things done.
Now look at what rushing ahead has gotten me into. I thought and tried to not regret what happened. I had suspected Valerie would have been easily swayed into sex, which was why I should have left before anything happened. I hadn't planned on a succubus ensnaring me by showing me exactly what I wanted to see. Her eating Valerie out and hearing her cute moans of pleasure.
I definitely needed to get away from this world as soon as possible. I just had to fix it first. I didn't want my kids growing up into a warzone and I would do everything to keep them safe. Everything. My plans slightly changed from stunning every one of the bad guys into disposing of them. Adding portkeys to send them to Azkaban and loading the place up with Dementors wouldn't take long at all.
*
The Arch-Angel Michael appeared in the visitor's room where Gabriel was living and he had no clue where he was. His magical senses couldn't pierce through whatever protections John Hansen had placed on the room that he promised would keep Gabriel and anyone visiting her safe from detection.
That alone worried the head angel, because they could be anywhere on Earth and attacked by any of the factions that were quite upset at him and the Heaven Faction for screwing up so much. The common people's faith in their religion was failing more as time went on and he had no idea how to fix it.
He also deeply regretted allowing his beautiful sister Gabriel to fall. The door opened and Gabriel stepped into the room with another person that felt oddly familiar.
What was that energy and why did it feel like that? Michael asked himself. It was both familiar and also different, so he couldn't categorize it. At least, not at first. It wasn't until Gabriel touched him that he felt a jolt go through him and his mind ground to a halt at the implications.
“You're finally here!” Gabriel said as she hugged him tightly, her beaming smile almost splitting her face. “I'm glad Uriel managed to convince you to visit.”
Michael couldn't make himself move or speak as he stared at his sister. His fully restored sister. His sister that was supposed to be a Fallen Angel with altered energy and couldn't possibly be full of Holy energy like she had been when she lived in Heaven. It wasn't possible. Once you fell, that was it. You couldn't get your golden glow back. The Heaven System his father created didn't allow it.
Gabriel saw his stunned expression and knew he knew. She giggled and let him go to take Andromeda's hand and pulled her close. “I want you to meet my best friend! Her name is Andromeda and she recently became my sister from another father!”
Michael made a distressed sound, almost like a record scratching under a broken needle, then he fainted.
Gabriel laughed as her brother collapsed to the floor and gave Andromeda a hug. “Help me move him. He's surprisingly heavy when he's dead weight like that.”
“Move him?” Andromeda asked, confused.
“I want him to wake up under the rings of Saturn. It's the best way to make sure he listens to us and doesn't fall into denial.” Gabriel said and let her go. “I'll take his arms and you take his feet.”
Andromeda nodded and the pair of them barely managed to lift the Arch-Angel and carried him out of the secured room and into the domed enclosure. They propped him up in front of the park bench Gabriel loved sitting on and staring up at the sky for hours on end, because she would never lose the wonder her Father's work always gave her at the beautiful sight.
Gabriel sat behind him and held him close as Andromeda sat beside her friend and they both waited for him to wake up. It didn't take long for the ancient being to wake up and he gasped when the first thing his eyes saw was the bright glittering rings of Saturn that filled a good portion of the sky.
“Isn't it beautiful?” Gabriel asked and hugged him.
All Michael could do was nod, because he was entranced by all the work their Father had done. He had no idea there was so much that had been created outside the world their Father had made for the humans to inhabit. He had always known that his Father was magnificent and now he was seeing the proof.
The three of them sat there for several hours in complete silence and enjoyed the sight. Andromeda shared their wonder as well, since she was used to flying around through space on her own. She soon discovered that she was going to miss that feeling and would ask John the next time they talked about giving her a ship of her own to pilot.
Maybe she could even have her old body because it didn't have a controlling AI anymore? It shouldn't take much to install an interface for her cybernetic parts to interact with and she could get that feeling back again.
“How?” Michael asked.
The three of them knew he was asking about more than what was in front of him.
“John said he wasn't changing what Father made. He was only finishing it.” Gabriel said and kissed his cheek. “I have a datapad for you to look through as proof. He's using Father's building blocks to complete his work and giving us a place to live. A real place to live.”
“A... a real place... to live?” Michael asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes, isn't it wonderful? This is a whole world of our very own.” Gabriel said, her voice full of gratitude. “John's been working his cute little butt off getting several worlds ready for new inhabitants and arranging for appropriate flora and fauna for them.”
Michael blinked his eyes several times after hearing that, then he gasped and turned his head with a snap to stare at his innocent little sister. “What did you say about his behind?!?”
Gabriel giggled and blushed. “Well, I was a Fallen Angel for a while and I couldn't help admiring a few things.”
“You... you... no, you... you couldn't have... you didn't... no... not my baby sister...” Michael mumbled in a constant stream.
Gabriel laughed and kissed his cheek again. “Don't worry, Michael. I didn't do anything with the mortal. He's married twice over and he made sure to give me space as I adjusted to my new life. I didn't abuse his hospitality or hinted that I liked him.”
Andromeda didn't comment that John could easily read her mind and probably knew she had thought about him like that. She also didn't comment that he would never abuse his power over Gabriel, either. Like he had told Gabriel before, he was trying to be a better man and was fixing his mistakes.
Michael visibly relaxed into Gabriel's arms and they stayed there for quite some time. The quiet solitude was comforting because none of them felt the need to speak and fill the silence.
Two hours later, Michael let out a soft sigh. “Can you tell me how he did what he did to you?”
“We don't know and I didn't bother asking.” Gabriel said and he sighed again. “I'm sure he'll tell us if we did ask. He's pretty free with sharing everything with his friends.”
Michael nodded. “I can't do it myself, since I screwed up the last time I tried to deal with him.”
Andromeda did not say if he didn't act like a pompous asshole, John would have dealt with him in good faith from the start. It was his own fault for treating John like a lesser being and not with respect.
“Then I'll ask him.” Gabriel said and let Michael go to tap the emblem of wings on the collar of her dress. “Gabriel to John. Hi! Can you talk or are you busy?”
A minute later, John responded. “Hi, Gabriel. Just a second.” Literally a second later, his voice was back. “I was working in the lab and now I'm in the living room and can talk.”
“You could have said you were busy. It wasn't urgent.” Gabriel said with a pout.
“I'm not even looking at you and I know you're pouting.” John said with a chuckle. “I don't mind taking breaks from the sheer monotony I'm working on, especially to talk to you.”
Gabriel blushed and placed a hand over Michael's mouth and used a bit of magic to stop him from talking, because she knew he was going to comment about John flirting with her, even if it was innocent.
“What can I do for the most beautiful Angel in Heaven?” John prompted and Michael said something into Gabriel's hand that couldn't be heard.
“Michael finally managed to visit and I told him you gifted the Heaven Faction this world to live on.” Gabriel said.
“Ah, and he's wondering why you're no longer a Fallen Angel.” John said, catching onto the real reason right away. “You can tell him that I never meant to cause you to fall and working on fixing that mistake. It took a few years to figure out why an Angel's energy changes when they become Fallen Angels, too. Once we did, we knew growing you a body and adapting it to your unique energy signature would work when we added in your Fallen Angel energy, too.”
“That doesn't make sense! How could you copy my energy from before I fell?” Gabriel asked.
“I can't give away all my secrets, Gabby. Just trust that Panacea and I knew what we were doing when we brought you back to His Grace.” John told her.
Gabriel looked both flattered and embarrassed, because only her Father ever called her that and was the only one she wouldn't question and trusted unconditionally. “J-John...”
“Oh, and tell him I fixed the Heaven System as well. It takes an Angel actually sinning intentionally to Fall and it can no longer happen by accident or because of a brief lapse in judgment.” John said and Gabriel gasped. “A flare of anger against humans won't make you fall, unless you intentionally intend for it to corrupt your pure soul and let anger fill your heart.”
“I... I...” Gabriel paused and took a deep breath. “I love you and I want to have your babies.”
Complete silence fell and no one said anything for a full minute.
“If you really mean that, then we need to marry under the eyes of the church in Holy Matrimony and then we can lay together as husband and wife without you falling.” John finally responded.
Gabriel's smile literally lit up the room as she glowed gold. “I knew you would understand. I'll book the Vatican for the weekend and the Heavenly Host will be there as witnesses.”
John let out a few laughs. “Of course you can book the Vatican for a wedding with no notice.”
“I'm an Arch-Angel and my brother runs Heaven. I can do whatever I want with Heaven's resources.” Gabriel said without a hint of pride. It was just the way things were and there was no self-importance involved.
“I'm starting to understand how differently Angels think about things.” John commented. “I'll be ready for whenever you want to arrange the time. Call me with the details and I'll handle the rest.”
“I will. Thank you, John.” Gabriel said, her voice full of gratitude. “Our babies are going to be the most beautiful angels to ever exist and everyone will know their names!”
John chuckled. “I'm not going to argue about naming them properly. I'll leave that up to you.”
Gabriel looked very pleased. “I knew you really understood.”
“I'm not dumb enough to get in the way of the decisions of my wives.” John said, clearly amused. “I'll also leave it to you to tell Michael that his beautiful little sister is about to become a wife and mother.”
Gabriel giggled. “It won't be as difficult as you think it is.”
John was quiet for a moment. “He's right there listening, isn't he?”
Gabriel giggled some more.
John sighed. “Dammit.” He said. “All right, some of my plans need to be moved up to happen before the wedding. I'll be ready by the weekend and will see you at the church at the appropriate time.”
“I'll see you then.” Gabriel said. “Bye, John.”
“Bye.” John said and ended the comm signal.
Gabriel ended the silence spell on Michael and let his mouth go. Her brother didn't move or say anything as he stared at her. Instead of saying anything, since no words needed to be said, Gabriel hugged him and kissed his cheek. She let him go and walked over to where the datapad was, handed it to him, then took Andromeda's hand.
“We have a wedding to plan.” Gabriel said and dragged her friend off to do just that.
Michael stayed there and stared where his sister used to be and he didn't know how to react. His fingers absently poked at the datapad in his hands and it beeped at him. He looked down at it and his eyes widened at all the plans and efforts that John Hansen was going through to prepare places for the different factions and people to live in.
It really was finishing his Father's plans, since he started with Earth and made it for the humans. Why wouldn't he start working on others for the other races in existence? He wanted them all to be happy, didn't he?
Michael tried to not feel envy at the scope of the plans to fix everything. He hadn't been able to fix his own faction, let alone all the others, and John was doing them all at the same time. Releasing all those files and secrets was just the opening shot to get all the people responsible in place and to track them all down.
As he checked into the Heaven Faction and the things John planned for the church, he smiled. His envy disappeared as he saw how much responsibility the man had put onto his own shoulders and Michael knew John understood the pressure he felt on his own shoulders. The care he was using as he handled the church's problems for him, gave Michael a warm feeling inside.
Was this what pride felt like? Michael asked himself and kept going over the plans.
Surprisingly, the Head Angel was okay with all of them and he had no objections about how they would be handled. He wasn't going to warn them, either. In fact, he had a certain item in a secured storage facility and thought it was about time someone else besides the Heaven Faction was allowed to examine it.
I have to wonder what John might come up with after he gains access to the Shroud of Turin. Michael thought and continued to browse through everything on the datapad. John really was incredibly smart to be able to do everything his plans showed and to succeed with them. He thought and started to frown. I might forgive him in a few centuries for giving Gabriel back and then taking her from me again.
*
“Is everything in place?” I asked a day later and Eye beeped at me. “Good. Good.” I said and checked the holotable's display again. I was in a slightly expanded dimensional space that only had a small time compression, so I could react quickly and handle any problems that appeared. “Nothing's been detected?”
“Boop.” Eye said and his smaller drone body turned side to side as if shaking his head.
I nodded back and checked everything one last time. I took a deep breath and let it out. “Execute.”
*
All over the world, the Underworld, in various realms of the different pantheons of the gods, hidden spaces where supernatural beings lived, in secret buildings and areas of the church in every country, and in all the territories of the Devils, Angels, Fallen Angels, and Youkai... stealth drones fired their stun weapons.
None of the targets suspected a thing as they all fell, even the targeted gods, because I had boosted the stun power to the max by using magical naquedah fusion generators to ensure that even Zeus himself couldn't shake off the effect.
Once they were all down, portkeys were dropped and activated and the drones moved on to their secondary targets. It was one of the downsides of activating the plan early. John didn't have enough drones for each individual and would have to sacrifice most of the drones to succeed. It was worth it, because all of them reached their secondary targets and captured them, too.
After all the targets had been sent off to Azkaban to wait for their trials, the drones found the final targets and exploded, crippling each and every faction's main seats of power... or so it seemed. It was only a magical disruption field and would make everyone else in their factions think they were destroyed, causing untold panic.
Complete and utter chaos was unleashed, especially in the secret hidden bases of the Hero Faction and the Khaos Brigade. They were all caught unaware as they were dealt with and their bases were actually ruined by batches of real explosions after they had been portkeyed away. The only being not targeted was a specific entity that was relaxing in her own sanctum in the main Khaos Brigade's base.
Instead of attacking, the stealth drone decloaked in front of Ophis, whom was using a teenage female form this time as they relaxed on a couch. The entity raised a single eyebrow at the impertinence of sending something into her sanctum without her permission, then the drone's bottom opened up and revealed a plate of delicious cookies and a single note.
Instead of destroying the disturbance like the annoyance it was, Ophis took a small sniff and her cute nose twitched. She reached out and picked up one of the cookies with one hand and picked up the note with the other to read it.
Oh Great and Mighty Ophis,
This humble being has sent you two things. One is a drone that can create an unlimited source of sweets for you. The other is a request to give you that which you have been denied for far too long. A space of your own that will give you silence.
Ophis was pleased at the appropriate deference to her mightiness and sat up as she nibbled on the very tasty cookie with flavours she had never tasted before. How did whoever this is know her desire?
Please touch the gold emblem on the front of the drone and say 'Peace and Quiet'. You will be taken to a location that has been specifically built with you in mind. No sound can enter or escape and there is a near infinite space for you to relax in.
It also has various things of destruction for you to play with while you wait for Great Red to grow bored and fall asleep in a millennium or two. You can have your revenge on him then by dropping a bomb on him and waking him up so he has to take another millennium or two to fall asleep again.
Ophis couldn't stop a small smile from appearing on her face. They really did know her well.
The space I prepared for you is neither a cage nor a prison, almighty Ophis. It is your retreat. You can come and go at any time, as is your right. I am providing safe places for everyone, like the Angels, the Devils, the Youkai, and even the humans. None of them are as magnificent as your space is, because I spent several time-compressed years enchanting it and making sure you would have your heart's desire for as long as you needed it.
Thank you for letting me live and for thinking about accepting these gifts. I hope you enjoy them as much as you can and you can finally relax without worries, which is what all noble beings should truly wish for.
Your humble patron,
John Hansen.
Ophis ate another cookie and read the note again. She was only slightly surprised that his words touched her each time and she really didn't want to smite him for disturbing her. Plus, the cookies were delicious and she would have to visit this so called retreat at least once. If it wasn't as good as his claim, she would destroy him and everything he has, just on pure principle.
Would she regret it? Possibly. She was the Infinite Dragon God and such petty concerns like morality and rules were beneath her when she chose to ignore them. They didn't apply to her anyway. With a smile, her dainty hand reached out and touched the gold emblem on the front of the drone.
“Peace and Quiet.” Ophis said and she allowed the odd transportation magic to activate and she let out a soft hum of approval as she started to swirl and spin around the drone. She took another cookie and nibbled on it as the surprisingly long transport sent her across the solar system to the smallest planet. Her senses told her exactly where she was and her curiosity got the better of her as the trip ended.
She was inside the planet, the completely hollowed out planet, and she marvelled at both the dimensional magic and the nearly infinite space. With both claims proven, she started to explore her retreat. As he had promised, there were hundreds of weapons of mass destruction, directions for everything, and spaces for her to relax in both her humanoid form and her dragon form.
The dragon-sized bed and spa made Ophis giggle a little, which shocked her. When had she ever found something funny? Her eyes went over to the various things spread out all over and she saw the playground. Another giggle escaped her before she could stop it, because it was a dragon-sized playground.
Ophis couldn't resist flying over to the massive ball pit that begged for her to change to her dragon form to dive into. So, she did. The splash was epic and she laughed as thousands of metal balls dropped back down and pelted her impervious scales and tickled her. She floated up and changed back to her humanoid form and flew back over to the normal bed. She laid down and the drone settled beside her.
Her dainty hand grabbed another cookie and she was halfway through it before she drifted off to sleep with a happy smile on her face. Not one single sound had been heard by her very sensitive ears for the entire time she had been inside the retreat, except for her own voice, and that was heaven for her. Absolute heaven.
*
I shivered as the feeling of impending doom eased off and seemed to float off like it was distracted. Eye beeped at me and reported the teleportation into the Pluto internal biodome and nothing leaving it, which let me relax. Ophis had taken my offer and hadn't destroyed everything, so I knew my bribe had worked.
It had been a complete guess about what she wanted, considering both Azazel and Gabriel had said her previous home had been the Void Between Worlds and that the Great Red Dragon had pretty much chased her out of it and annoyed her, because he was bored and she was his equal and could take it.
If it hadn't been for Koneko's sister Kuroka making contact with her, and giving me that last piece of information about her difficulty in keeping enough sweets around for the infinite dragon to eat, my offer might have failed to get her attention and I could have died.
“All right, the worst of the worst have been taken care of. Let's clean up the riffraff.” I said and Eye beeped at me. I had debated using the various military agencies around the world to sweep into the evil lairs and multiple secret bases, except I didn't want any restricted technology or magic artifacts falling into the wrong hands. Who knew what kind of things the supernatural races like the Devils had stashed around?
I had to handle things personally and I apparated to the closest location, thanks to the downloaded footage from the recently destroyed stealth drones. Despite the huge explosions, the illegal bases were relatively intact and I sent the minions and peons to Azkaban and added more prisoners for the Dementors to feed on. Then the looting began.
It was almost fun as I pilfered everything I could get my hands on. Since I still couldn't chance using the Force or any of the specialty White Power Rings, I used a Green Lantern willpower ring instead to touch everything and sent it into my storage space. I also gained copies of everything, not that I needed more gold, jewels, paintings, and vehicles.
Of course, once I emptied the base of everything, even the food and supplies stored there, I converted the plot of land into a basic one, which removed any and all traces of both the base and the presence of the supernatural in the area. It was cathartic that I was cleaning up the world of their evil influence and returning it to the way it should have been.
Was it arrogant of me to feel this way? Definitely. But, I had made this decision a long time ago and I wasn't going to chicken out and not go through with it, not after doing all that work to make them new places to live. Plus, none of these bases should have been there or should allow the different races to spy on humanity... or in some cases, kidnap them and make them into slaves.
I worked for almost six solid hours as I travelled the world destroying bases, secret research labs, and experiments being performed on children. A majority of them were inside and under churches and that was sad and appropriate, since the people running them would be sent to what they believed was Purgatory. They would relive their worst memories and all their happiness would be sucked out.
Maybe that was why Michael hasn't tried to contact me or tried to stop me? I asked myself as I left the last of the church labs. The funny thing was, the normal exorcists were more fanatical than the rogue ones and hadn't bothered trying to talk to me or asked me why I had kidnapped their leaders and was destroying all their research.
On the positive side, I easily found all of the Excalibur Fragments, including the Sheath of Avalon, a supposedly healing item with several other enchantments on it. I also found hidden research into the other holy relics of history and I had Eye log everything and had him work on tracing them with modern maps and technology.
Surprisingly, a few of them matched the glitches our satellite network had picked up during the routine scanning of the planet's surface we used to find the different factions and magical barriers hiding them from normal mortal detection. That made finding the relics much easier and I spent the next hour popping into those areas and finding various treasure hoards, some of which were from long-dead dragons.
A lot of the items counted as historical objects on their own, considering how old they were, and I had Eye pick through them to find the most significant pieces to dig up the history about and recorded their providence, then I stored them in different containers to send to their various governments for museum purposes.
I was pretty sure the Queen of England would want her great-grandfather's original crown jewels back. Maybe she would also want the desiccated and mummified corpse of the dragon that stole them and ate the man and his retinue, too? I looked around and found what was left of the royal carriage and added that to the pile to return to her. I added the armor and swords of the guards to complete the set, too.
I asked Eye to arrange an appropriate time to deliver them and continued on my trip to find things the church hoped to bring back to their leaders, not realizing they only wanted them to increase their own fame. That wasn't supposed to be why you gathered famous things from history. You were supposed to be rescuing them.
I chuckled and remembered doing this way back in the Scooby Doo universe with Gloria. We had so much fun treasure-hunting the long way and I thought about repeating that here, then shrugged. It was something Gloria and I did and I didn't want to do it alone. Perhaps Sona would enjoy a small vacation to the Bermuda Triangle when school was out for the summer?
I made it back to the house and was greeted in the living room by several upset faces. Ravel and her mother, Sona and her mother, and Rias and her mother. Their Peerage members were arrayed around them, crowding the living room, and I let out a sigh at the hostile atmosphere.
“Do you realize what you've done?” Ravel asked me and hugged the little bundle that was our son.
“I do.” I said and she looked surprised. “If you hadn't rushed here to wait for me, you would have seen the press release Eye released.”
“We saw it.” Sona said, her own arms empty as her mother held our son. “Why would you think forcing the entire Devil Race to abandon their homes and move was a good idea?”
“Forcing them to...” I stopped talking when I saw they actually believed that. “Sirzechs released a counter-statement, didn't he?”
“Beep.” Eye said and the wall changed to show it.
I sighed when it was over and shook my head. “What an idiot.”
“He's not an idiot!” Rias shouted and her mother Venelana put a hand on her arm to stop her.
“He made you all think you didn't have a choice and that I'm forcing you to move, causing you to immediately hate the idea.” I said and had Eye play the original broadcast.
Everyone in the room watched it in silence. None of them seemed to understand the significance, so I had to explain things to them to make them understand.
“I terraformed an entire planet for the Devil Race to move to, if they wanted to live under a real sky, have real lakes and clean water to enjoy, and the lower classes can get away from the controlling upper class that represses them and the Underworld's pervasive monster breeding pits that fill a good portion of the unexplored lands and kill hundreds of Devils each year.”
Sona blushed and couldn't meet my eyes, because it was one of the reasons she wanted to open her Ratings Game school to train Devils to survive all the dangers the Underworld exposed them to.
“I had hoped my wives wouldn't doubt my decisions after all the time we've spent together discussing things.” I said and Ravel blushed as well as she ducked her head. “Lady Phenex, Lady Sitri, and Lady Gremory, I assume you and your Peerages are here to intimidate me into changing my mind and releasing another statement?”
“Yes.” Venelana said, the only one brave enough to say so to my face after my explanation. “My son would have been here, except he's dealing with something that's more important.”
I let a wide smile spread across my face. “He's not the only one.”
Venelana looked startled for a moment and then looked embarrassed. “It was you.”
“Of course it was me. Did you think all that information I released was going to do nothing? That there would be no consequences for what members of the Old Satan Faction and the New King Faction have done? What Diodora Astaroth did to all those nuns?” I asked and she didn't respond. “Did you really believe that your son's idea of saying 'we're devils' was going to make everyone forgive and forget?”
“How did you know...” Rias started to ask and stopped herself.
“It doesn't matter.” I said and gave each person there a look. “Since you are all here to support the Satan Lucifer's position, I'll do as you so politely requested and will release a statement.”
“No!” Sona gasped when she realized what I meant.
I chuckled at her reaction. “It's all right, I'm not going nuclear. I learned my lesson and know better than that.” I turned to Eye and nodded.
“Beep.” Eye said, telling me he was recording.
“My name is John Hansen and I am personally calling the Devil race a bunch of morons.” I said and Sona made a distressed sound. “I made a genuine offer to let each and every Devil, from the lowest commoner to the richest high class, move to a new home without restrictions. Instead of seeing it as an opportunity, the Satan Lucifer chose to twist my words into blatant lies and you all accepted that.”
“John, don't.” Ravel said in a whisper.
“As of this moment, I hereby rescind my generous offer to let you move for free. Instead of your race having a new home unburdened by evil creatures hunting you and an oppressive social system holding you all down, I'll be donating the planet to the humans instead and they will have two choices to move to if they want.”
“I thought you said you weren't going nuclear.” Sona said, softly.
“I have a small moon around Jupiter prepared that you can move to instead, as long as you can pay the 10,000 Devil Dollar processing fee per person. If you have any complaints about the change, please send them to Satan Lucifer. I'm sure he can answer any questions you have, since you believe everything he says anyway. End transmission.”
“Boop beep.” Eye said.
I chuckled. “No, they can't block it. We broke their broadcast systems months ago.”
Everyone there stared at me in shock, mostly because I had acted so devilishly. I chose to ignore the lustful looks on all the women's faces, even my wives.
“John.” Ravager said from behind the completely silent crowd.
“Yes, love?” I asked and didn't wonder how long she had been hiding there.
“You are bending an entire race to your will. I need another baby in me.” Ravager ordered.
“Yes, dear.” I said without resistance and walked around the group of Devils.
Ravager took my hand instead of assaulting me and dragging me away. I gave her raised eyebrows until we entered her normal room and she slammed the door, punched me in the gut, then she tossed me onto the bed.
“I was worried you were going soft for a minute there.” I said and she smiled as she tackled me and tore my clothes off. Unlike some of the women in my life, she was a very easy woman to understand and to please.
*
That weekend saw the Vatican surrounded by devoted worshippers for the wedding of the century. All of them were screened by the new protection wards, too. Any people with evil intent were rejected and detained, which made the rest of the people rejoice. If those wards could be placed at all of their churches and not just on the Holy of Holies, they would never have to worry about crimes ever again.
To all of their surprise, various golden portals opened up around the Vatican and scores of Angels came from Heaven Above. Their faith was bolstered as their Holy energy flowed over the crowd and their benevolence and love filled the onlookers more than ever before. For most of them, it was the first time they had seen their eternal protectors and they fell to their knees and prayed their thanks.
Their faith made the Angels glow and all of them smiled warm smiles at the followers of their faith. They walked through the parting crowds and entered the largest church in the world. Inside were the Holy Host, the Seraphs, and the Arch-Angels, and they all arranged themselves among the nuns and priests in the audience as they waited for the event to start.
Among them was a nun that had previously been excommunicated. Asia Argento had healed an injured man without realizing he was a Devil or that it was a trick set up by her bishop to have her removed. She had been too popular and in more demand than he was and he let his envy and jealousy rule him as he abused his position.
Luckily, the head of the Fallen Angels named Azazel had been very kind and kept her sequestered until all the details had been released to the public. The bishop and several high priests of that church were arrested and taken away to serve their penance in an unknown prison. That was when the nun was released to the Vatican and into the custody of the Pope himself.
Asia had been surprised when the man thanked her for not letting her situation shake her faith. It was amazing! The Pope talked to her for hours about her healing gift and how she was raised in the church. He had frowned at her treatment and then professed that they were all taken care of now and her life would be all the better for it.
She fully believed that, because she had been immediately put in charge of the new orphanage with a staff and dozens of cute little healthy babies to raise in the eyes of the church. No one asked where they came from or where the huge donation to the church came from. The best part was that it didn't interfere with her work healing the sick and infirm, which meant her life had become an even bigger joy for her.
The music started and everyone turned towards the front of the church. Cherubs floated slowly down the aisle and scattered rose petals across the floor. The light they emitted was full of happy feelings and they laughed and played until they reached the end and nodded at the groom and floated off to the sides to witness the ceremony.
A beautiful woman walked down the aisle next and only a few people in the audience knew who she was, Gabriel's best friend Andromeda. She was the Maid of Honor and took her place across from the groom. That was when the music changed to the marriage march and all eyes went back to the front of the church.
Everyone gasped at the feeling of Holy energy that filled the room to bursting when Michael escorted his sister down the aisle. No one could look away from the vision of loveliness as she proudly strode down the aisle towards the man she would join in holy matrimony until the end of time. No one could look away from her, not even the groom, and Gabriel blushed at the love and admiration she could feel from everyone.
The walk seemed to take forever and no time at all as they stopped at the altar. Gabriel missed whatever Michael said to John and she smiled as John laughed and clapped Michael on the shoulder, playing up the brother-in-law role as much as he could in public. Michael chuckled and stepped back, bowed to her, and stepped over to stand beside John as his Best Man.
It had surprised them all that John didn't have any close male friends that would survive inside the church, which also surprised them. They had all thought he was a pureblood Devil and couldn't survive so much exposure to Holy energy. John explained that people always make assumptions and he never bothered trying to correct them, since it didn't matter to him.
The ceremony started and the Pope himself conducted it. He spoke in his native language and everyone understood him, thanks to John's translation spells. The camera crews had been hidden from view and recorded everything, since it would be the very first record of an Angel being married inside the Vatican. It would make history and would also set a kind of trend that would spread far and wide.
An hour later, the Pope commanded John to kiss the bride and John moved the thin veil up and out of the way. He caught his breath at the beautiful face of his wife and Gabriel blushed at his reaction, then they leaned in and shared their very first kiss.
Both of them softly glowed as their energies intertwined, sharing a bit of themselves with each other, then they broke the kiss and the Pope introduced them as Mister and Missus John Hansen. The crowd cheered and applauded as John and Gabriel walked back down the aisle. No one was surprised when they stepped out of the church and were greeted by louder cheers and applause.
After waving and thanking everyone for being there on their big day, the two of them disappeared. They were gone for half an hour of real time, or two weeks expanded time, and reappeared at the reception hall that was previously a converted soccer field. No one was surprised that Gabriel was pregnant and they all celebrated what would be the first natural birth of an Angel in centuries.
What no one but Gabriel, John, and Panacea knew was that an Arch-Angel's body didn't have an Angel's normal restrictions and she could give birth to more than one child at a time. Since they were setting a record anyway, Gabriel convinced her husband to give her 12 children that would become the basis of the new Holy Host for the next generation and they would spread hope and love to the masses.
Gabriel's desire was so ridiculous that John could do nothing but try to fulfill it... and he succeeded. Panacea had been flustered at the Arch-Angel's outrageous ability for multiple births. She did not even try to think about copying the attempt, because she wasn't insane. Her opinion made Gabriel laugh and hug the woman and asked her to be their godmother. Panacea accepted.
The reception was a blast and everyone had good clean fun dancing and mingling, revelling in both the Holy energy the angelic beings radiated and all the happiness and joy everyone felt. A great time was had by all and everyone would be talking about it for years to come. The televised broadcast soon became the most watched program in history.
*
A week later, the nine-tailed fox Youkai named Yasaka, the titular leader of her people, stared at the gigantic magical forests that surrounded her new home on the side of a mountain. The view was breathtaking and she couldn't imagine a better spot for a leader to watch over her people.
Her brain had kind of tuned out John's explanation of where they were and why he was giving her and her people an entire world for themselves. It wasn't until he mentioned that he had arranged for free travel between there and their protected lands back on Earth that she snapped out of her daze.
“You're not cutting us off?” Yasaka asked, surprised.
John chuckled. “Like I told a certain being that I won't mention by name, this is neither a cage nor a prison. It's a safe haven for you and your people to relax in.”
“Like a retreat or a vacation home?” Yasaka asked and John nodded.
“I know a lot of you have businesses to run and enjoy interacting with humans, especially during festivals and things. I can't in good conscience tell you all to stop how you live your lives.” John said and then frowned. “Unless you commit crimes or hurt people, then I'll step in and will remove you.”
Yasaka hid her shiver at the intensity of his gaze and couldn't stop herself from becoming aroused. This was the man that personally removed all of the evil supernatural elements from the world. The whole world. That kind of power was intoxicating and her motherly instincts started to kick in because she knew he could give her a child if she asked him for it.
John saw her face and let out a sigh and stepped away from her. “I apologize for that. I'm not threatening you, I'm letting you know that since I stepped up and handled things, I'm going to keep doing so. I won't let things degrade like they have in the past and a simple monitoring program will keep me and my drones on top of things.”
Yasaka tried to not let her disappointment show at him faking being weak. “I will keep your words in mind, Mister Hansen.”
John opened his mouth to respond and realized she hadn't called him John. He had apparently insulted her and he couldn't correct himself, because that would make him seem even weaker for not sticking to his choice of not encouraging her. He closed his mouth and handed her a datapad with everything she needed to know about her new territory.
Yasaka accepted it and didn't even look at it as she kept her eyes on his face. She waited for him to keep talking, probably to tell her how to use the transportation network. Instead, she had to hide her surprise when he walked over to the steel and stone ring of magic and hit several buttons to make them glow, then the portal formed and revealed a rippling water-like surface.
John gave her a nod and stepped through, leaving her alone. Yasaka didn't panic, though. She had brought her staff and guards with her and she knew they were not far away. They had been listening and watching to make sure she would be safe and she appreciated it. With a wave of her hand, one of her guards appeared.
“Dial us home, please. We have news to spread and people's homes to move.” Yasaka ordered.
“Yes, my Queen.” The guard said and bowed, walked over to the device, and dialed a different sequence. She made a mental note to try and dial John's address later.
When the portal reappeared, Yasaka didn't hesitate and walked over to it and went through it. The trip was almost instantaneous, since it was within the same solar system, and she stepped out into the main square in front of her home.
“Send out the word.” Yasaka ordered and went inside her home to meet with her daughter. They had things to pack and move to their identical home in the mountains on a moon around Neptune.
*
I sat down on my couch in my living room to read over some reports and to spend some time with Eye. It was a day that nothing else had a claim for my attention, since everyone else was busy with something or other. Even my three wives were bonding over their experiences with motherhood as they had a spa day at one of the best human resorts on Earth.
Both Ravel and Sona had been apologetic for how they reacted to my cleansing of their society's more disruptive elements and for believing I would force them to abandon their family lands and their people. Their claims of losing so many resources, buildings, farms, and other essentials they used to run their territories, which essentially would bankrupt their families, were completely untrue.
I hadn't forgiven them yet nor did I berate them for being so stupid. They should have known that I would never let my friends and family suffer anything like that. Had they not known about all my plans? I told them everything except about that one surprise gift, a new home that was safe from all the dangers that everyone worries about, and they believed I was doing it to hurt them and their people.
Sirzechs really had tried to screw me over because of my gift, probably because his job would be superfluous if everyone moved somewhere else. Now he was being publicly torn apart because the amount of money I was charging for people to move was something the average Devil, reincarnated in a rich Peerage or not, could not afford.
That was also the point I was trying to make. Only the upper crust of their society could afford to move their families and servants to the new homes. The rest of the Devils absolutely hated it because it was exactly the same problem they always had with their rulers and Sirzechs was the cause of it.
I apparently made everything worse by releasing the information that the Heaven Faction, the Fallen Angel Faction, the Youkai Faction, and several pantheons of different religions chose to accept my gift of a new home without argument. They loved their secured and protected homes and they used the Community Gates that allowed free travel back and forth to their old communities, free of charge.
The Devils nearly lost their minds after hearing that and there was rioting in the streets. Being the considerate soul he is, Eye had edited and released some footage of various members of those factions commenting about how convenient it was to have a safe place to hide and relax, like a vacation, and still return to their businesses and interacting with the humans.
I chuckled as I read that someone tried to bomb the New Satan's government offices after that. The wards they had bought from me had protected the building and that enraged the attacking Devils even more, because the government was being protected and the common people weren't.
“Beep?” Eye asked me.
I closed the folder and picked up the next one that had Ravel's reports about our businesses. “According to this, none of the high class devils have officially accepted the offer or made any payments to start the process. Apparently, there's a policy the Satans put into place that forces them to not do anything until the situation improves.”
“Beep.” Eye said and beeped a laugh.
“I know, right?” I said and laughed myself. “Unofficially, we've been flooded with inquiries about the details. When they heard I could replicate their mansions and grounds without trouble, they started applying personal and political pressure on the Domestic Affairs Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister. Neither Sirzechs nor Serafall are having a good time right now.”
“Boop beep.” Eye said.
“I don't know how long I should let it go on. They haven't tried to contact me, not even through their sisters.” I said and closed the folder and sat back on the couch. “Either they're stubborn about asking for help or they hate the fact I turned their own tactic against them and succeeded when they failed.”
Eye floated over to settle beside me, which reminded me of something.
“You haven't gone flying in a while.” I commented and patted his fuselage.
“Beep beep boop.” Eye said.
I chuckled. “It was too much of a good thing? I suppose that's true.” I said and put my feet up on the couch and crossed my ankles as I put my hands behind my head to relax. “Moderation is the key, I think. You disappeared all day the first time, then less and less as the days wore on, and now you don't go out at all.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “You flew all over the planet, didn't you?”
“Beep.” Eye responded.
“Ha, nothing left to explore and check out. I understand, buddy.” I said and laid there as I relaxed. “You've also seen the other planets and moons while you were helping me, so that's out, too.”
“Beep.” Eye agreed. “Beep?”
“Right, I forgot to check Andromeda's update. Just a second.” I said and sat up to move the folders around and picked up hers. “Here we go.” I glanced through it and sighed. “I hate being right sometimes.”
“Boop?” Eye asked.
“Supernatural shenanigans. The mappers reached the next galaxy and there's nothing but bare planets with no atmospheres and minimum power suns in their solar systems. It's enough to light up in the sky, giving telescopes something pretty to look at; but, there's no life at all or even signs of it ever existing.”
Eye beeped sadly at that.
“Yeah, Voyager 4's sad about it, too. She hasn't recalled or detonated the mappers, hoping the next one might have something...” I trailed off. “Yeah, it's futile. Most of the effort and magic was concentrated here in this solar system, making it the only game in town.”
“Boop beep.” Eye suggested.
“Heh. We can probably stop the space race in its tracks if we release that info. The Sol System is all there is and there's no point in trying to reach out beyond it.” I said and pulled out the material composition tests. “There aren't even any resources out there past the Oort Cloud. What we have here is it, and that's all.”
“Beep.” Eye said, sadly.
“You're right, buddy. That's too depressing. We'll keep this info to ourselves, since it'll be hundreds of years before safe manned space flight by this Earth's technology will be possible, assuming they have the drive to try and get that far.” I put the paper back in the report and put it down. “I doubt it, considering how focused things are on the supernatural.”
“Boop?” Eye asked.
“Ah, yes. I guess that was the whole point of this place, wasn't it? All of the things ever mentioned in History exists here, the Greek Pantheon, the Norse Pantheon, several death realms that claim different souls, then there's angels, devils, grim reapers, reincarnated heroes, and everything else.”
“Boop.” Eye said.
I chuckled at that. “Yes, robots and AI, too. Then you throw in the ridiculous, like magical beasts, dragons of all shapes and sizes, multiple dragon gods, and a mostly automated magical computer called the Heaven System that controls when Angels fall and installs Sacred Gears into random humans to help uplift them.”
“Beep?” Eye asked.
I laughed and patted him. “Of course I copied it and stripped out almost everything non-essential. The programming alone is helping me fix my little shield problem.”
“Beep beep.” Eye said.
“Thankfully, my poking and prodding hasn't woken Ost up and she's still content. If I can convert the shield and its abilities into a Sacred Gear, it should unlock it and let it manifest on my arm, even in worlds where it isn't supposed to manifest because of stupid in-universe restrictions.”
“Boop.” Eye agreed.
“Sure, you can help. It's not like I'm rushing through with it or forcing things before I'm ready. With all the other crap handled for now, I have time to work on my own problems.” I said and laid back down.
Eye moved over to settle at my feet and mostly powered down. “Beep.”
“A nap sounds great, buddy.” I said and folded my hands on my belly and closed my eyes. “We can keep picking at the King piece later... and maybe... add the stripped program... to the OS and... that could handle... transformation of...” My voice trailed off, because I was more tired than I thought and fell asleep.
*
Mittelt teleported into the backyard of John's house and was glad he had moved her marker out of the large mud puddle. She still chuckled at the memory he had shared of Azazel freaking out about it and she still thought it was a huge turn on as John nuked him into bits of flesh and a few feathers.
She entered the house and paused in the living room when she saw her hunk of a human laying there with a peaceful look on his face. He had given her so much, including an entire world for her people to call their own, and his offer to restore her to her Angelic presence had made her cry for hours. She hadn't accepted, mostly because she loved her life now.
How could she go back to all the restrictions and behaving, just in case something might make her fall? Plus, she adored her little boytoy that John had made for her and she loved that John didn't restrict her at all, despite her being his and a part of his Peerage. He was also a fantastic lover and would give her anything she asked for, no matter what it was.
Mittelt didn't bother trying to wake him to talk to him like she wanted and instead carefully laid down beside him and cuddled in, because it had been a while since she had the chance to do that with the both of them so busy. Just before she drifted off to sleep, she admitted to herself that she loved the idiot that made her so strong and handed out advanced science and magic artifacts like they were candy.
*
Gabriel, Ravel, and Sona entered the house to show off their healthy glows to their husband. The three of them stopped in the doorway to the living room when they saw John asleep on the couch with a short Fallen Angel clinging to him like a monkey on a tree. It made Ravel chuckle and Sona smiled.
“So, do we wake them with a scare or leave them alone?” Gabriel asked in a whisper.
“There's no other choice?” Sona asked, curious.
“Nope! Either we leave or we tackle them.” Gabriel said, her grin mischievous.
Ravel softly laughed. “I vote tackle.”
Sona looked at Gabriel and the Arch-Angel nodded. She didn't mind being outvoted this time and nodded back. “On three.”
The three wives put their packages down and crept across the living room toward their targets.
“THREE!” The three of them yelled and jumped onto the couch.
“AHH!” “IEEEE!” John shouted and Mittelt yelled out in fright as the couch toppled over with the weight of three extra people hitting it.
They all fell into a pile on the floor behind the turned over couch and Gabriel laughed hard, Ravel almost peed herself, and Sona looked pleased at a prank well played. Floating above them was a happily beeping Eye and he had a mechanical digit sticking out and pointing at them.
“Oh, shut up.” John said with a groan. He just happened to land on the bottom of the pile and taken most of the hits himself. He also didn't really mind having four women on top of him, three of them were his laughing wives and the other one was Mittelt. “How did they convince you to help them?”
“M-me? I was a victim, too! They jumped us!” Mittelt exclaimed.
Eye beeped at us and confirmed that Mittlet had been there for a long while before the prank.
John pulled her out of the pile and hugged her as he gave her a tender kiss. “I'm sorry for doubting you, dear. Thank you for not waking me when you showed up.”
Mittelt blushed at both the nice kiss and the apology. “It's okay. I just came over to talk to you and you were asleep, so I figured it's been a while since I had a nap and joined you.”
“It was quite adorable.” Sona said and climbed to her feet.
“It was and we knew it would disturb you if we wanted to get your attention.” Ravel said as she stood and helped Gabriel stand as well.
“You did it in the most obvious way possible?” John asked with a blank face.
Sona stood up and nodded. “The little scare was Gabriel's idea.”
“Of course it was.” John said with a sigh before he looked them over and saw their current state. “A day at the spa was good for you.”
“He noticed!” Gabriel exclaimed and bent over at the waist to lean down and kissed him passionately. No one in the room missed the fact that her breasts slid right out of her toga and danced around, her nipples growing hard almost immediately. “You are the best husband ever!”
John wasn't sure how to respond to her actions without pointing out she had a wardrobe malfunction and nodded instead. Gabriel stood up once more and absently flicked her top back over her breasts to conceal them, her large nipples securing the cloth in place by practically impaling it.
“We just wanted to show off before heading home. Love you!” Gabriel said as she floated up through a golden teleportation circle and disappeared.
Sona and Ravel blinked their eyes at their fellow wife's quick retreat and weren't sure what to make of it. Mittelt was stunned to find out that Gabriel didn't wear panties under her toga and realized that was very very very important information that could worth her weight in gold to the right buyer, namely her old boss Azazel. She was definitely going to fleece that old pervert for a ton of money.
“I think being a Fallen Angel for a while has gone to her head.” John commented and didn't bother trying to get up off the floor. It was kind of comfortable and Mittelt was still clinging to him. He could also see both Ravel's and Sona's lacy panties from his vantage point.
“No comment.” Mittelt said and she didn't bother moving, either. She had the same view as John and both of the girls were hot and their wide motherly hips only added to that. Who wouldn't look at them if they had the chance? You didn't have to be a pervert to admire the beauty of a woman when it was presented to you like that. It sure helped, though.
Ravel glanced down at her husband and easily saw where his eyes were looking. She softly laughed and didn't try to cover herself up. “I'm not as flexible as her, John.” She said and had to kneel as she kissed her husband. “I'll see you tomorrow for our scheduled time together.”
“Goodnight, love.” John said with affection.
Ravel stood again and gave him an even better shot up her skirt for several seconds, smirked at him, then she stepped away and used her own teleportation circle to disappear.
Sona gave him a searching look before she let out a sound between a chuckle and a sigh as she stepped close and gave him a great view of her damp panties, then she knelt as well and gave him a deeper kiss than she would normally do in front of witnesses. She had to start making up for her mistake and this was only a tiny thing for her to stray out of her comfort zone.
“Day after tomorrow?” Sona asked when she broke the kiss.
“It's a date.” John said with a smile, because her changing her set schedule was a huge step for her.
Sona gave him another kiss, stood up and stepped back, then teleported away.
Mittelt waited for the glow of the teleportation circle to disappear before she spoke. “The three of them wanted to be where I am right now.”
“I know.” John said and didn't ease his hold on her.
“But...” Mittelt started to say.
“I'll explain later.” John said and gave her another kiss before he closed his eyes.
“Beep?” Eye asked.
“Thanks, buddy.” John said and a tractor beam righted the couch and both John and Mittelt were lifted up and placed back onto the couch together. “Remind me to secure it to the floor when I wake up.”
“Beep.” Eye said and floated away.
Mittelt looked at the drone for a moment and then looked back at John. She was curious about what was going on, then chose to let John tell her in his own time and closed her eyes. She wanted to talk to him, not annoy him, so she snuggled in and let out a contented sigh as she let sleep claim her again. It was nice to just let everything take care of itself for a while.
*
A week later, Serafall Leviathan, the Foreign Affairs Minister for the Underworld, sat in her office and was in a right snit. She was angry, upset, and frustrated. Her eternal rival Gabriel had Fallen after millennia of perfectness and she gloated over that, then the Fallen somehow regained her Grace, married the same guy as her Sona-Tan out of the blue, and was about to give birth somehow.
It shouldn't have been possible so soon, even if no one had any clue how long Angels needed to stay pregnant. There hadn't been a record of a natural Angel birth anywhere, at any time, so they were all pretty much in the dark about the details. Then again, both the Sitri and Phenex clans had mysteriously fast births for their new male Heirs an that hadn't been publicly explained, either.
Serafall also didn't want to discuss how much more work she had to do while taking care of all the problems the Devils had with the other factions as well as the increasing Sitri Clan's finances, now that those potions had hit the open market and were for sale to anyone that could afford them. It was almost funny how everyone from her fellow Satans to the lowest Devils scrambled for the headache and hangover potions to use almost daily.
She had her own stock that she had to buy at market prices and it was a huge hit to her reputation. She didn't get a family discount or even first option consideration, despite her handling the money for her family. It was all John Hansen's fault, she was sure, because her life had been much simpler before he showed up.
Now, their entire society was up in arms over how they were being mocked and treated by everyone else, even by the humans they had contracts with. It felt like a slap in the face when they were summoned less and less, like they were no longer needed, and a lot of the low power Devils were scared that their progress to become higher levels was going to stop completely.
Unfortunately, it wasn't a fear that Serafall could mitigate. She had asked Ajuka for the numbers and she saw that summonings and contracts were down across the board. Even her sister's Peerage were being summoned fewer times than normal over the last month and the numbers kept going down. She also had no idea how to change that.
How was she supposed to encourage more people to call them to do favors for them? Was someone else pushing the Devils out of their supposedly exclusive market? Who else could fulfill contracts like that and still deliver the goods that only Devils with their magic could?
The door to her office burst open and her secretary ran in, her breath in gasps. “Miss... Levi-tan!”
“Deborah, what is it?” Serafall asked and held in her anger at being interrupted.
“You... have to... see this.” The secretary said and handed her a cell phone she didn't recognize.
“Did you buy a new Devil phone?” Serafall asked as she accepted it.
“No, it was free.” The secretary said, a bit proudly.
“Free? How?” Serafall asked, her anger receding when her curiosity was raised. What she held in her hand was a very expensive model and there was no way it was free.
“I signed up for the 'first colonist' package from the Hansen Corporation last week and it came with a phone, a laptop, a tablet, a watch, and a communicator. I'll be moving from my tiny apartment into a huge house tomorrow.”
Serafall's mood immediately dropped into the toilet. “And you're only telling me this now?”
The secretary's face changed from proud to subdued. “Miss Levi-Tan, I...” She paused and took a breath. “Where I live won't affect how I do my job or my availability. The commute is instantaneous and...”
“You are undermining the government's public stance on the current situation.” Serafall cut her off with a stern voice. It was a tone that she had never used with any of her employees. Ever. “You know the statements I've had to give to maintain cohesion and to back up the Domestic Affairs Minister.”
The secretary almost shrank in on herself. “Miss Levi-Tan, I...”
“I assume you've signed paperwork and paid the fees already, so you can't cancel without losing it all?” Serafall asked in that same tone of voice and her secretary winced. “It seems I will no longer require your services, Deborah. I can't have the people working for me undermine my personal and political opinions.”
Deborah tried to hold back the tears and she couldn't. “Miss Levi-Tan, I...”
“I am severely hurt at your betrayal and I sincerely doubt anyone will want to hire you when they hear about how disloyal you are.” Serafall said and glared at the woman that had been her secretary for decades.
Deborah wiped at her eyes and started to step away from the desk, then she stopped and motioned to the cell phone in the Satan Leviathan's hand.
Serafall seriously considered crushing the thing and looked at her previous secretary's eyes to see the greed there. Her decision made, she held it up and smiled as she flexed her hand to crush it... and nothing happened. She blinked her eyes at the thing and she tried again, only for it to stay intact.
Deborah reached up and tapped the comm badge on her collar. “Deborah Harris to Heiress Sitri.”
“Sona here. Go ahead.” A clear voice that Serafall recognized said out of the badge.
“I'm sorry for calling, Miss Sitri. I just... you were right. She didn't even ask me to explain why I had to move.” Deborah said, her voice filled with sadness.
“It's all right, Debbie. I have the perfect spot in my administration for you to fill.” Sona said. “Perhaps you would also like to become part of my Peerage? I have a Pawn Piece left and a need for a fellow strategist and paper pusher.”
“Miss Sitri, I... I would be honored.” Deborah said, her tears not stopping. “For both things.”
“Excellent. I'll send you the coordinates and you can teleport over after you pack up your things.” Sona said with satisfaction.
“Um... well... Miss Levi-Tan has my phone and she's still trying to break it.” Deborah admitted.
Sona sighed. “Serafall, release my future Peerage's property.”
“Sona-Tan, you can't enable dissidence! This goes against the government's policy and...”
“NOW, Serafall!” Sona ordered and both Deborah and Serafall winced at the power behind it. “You are interfering in both a family matter and with my Peerage member. You will cease your actions immediately.”
Serafall opened her mouth to protest when the phone disintegrated in her hand with a swirl of energy and then it reappeared in the air in front of Deborah. She caught it before it fell and smiled.
“Deborah, if my sister tries to stop you from gathering your things, activate the retrieval beacon and John will get you out of there instantly. I will personally go there later to get your things back.” Sona told her.
“Th-thank you, Miss Sitri.” Deborah said, her voice full of gratitude.
“It's the least I can do for my final Peerage member. Welcome aboard and I'll see you soon. Sona out.” Sona's voice said and the call ended.
Deborah walked over to the still open office door and turned around to look at her old boss. “As my final act as your secretary, I will leave you with a recommendation to look at the reason I rushed in here. You should check out the Devil Net and the latest announcement from the Phenex and Sitri clans.”
Serafall didn't say anything as the woman left and sat there in silence for several minutes as she went over what just happened. She hadn't realized that the sister she adored, and secretly lusted after, was against her enough to steal her loyal secretary out from underneath her. It made her wonder what else Sona wanted of hers. Her telecommunications empire? Her magical girl shtick? Her much larger breasts?
That last question brought Serafall's runaway thoughts to an end, because motherhood had been very good to Sona. It had given her exactly what she had been jealous about when it came to her mother and her sister.
Sona's normally straight out pointy breasts had changed with the addition of a mother's milk production. They had grown out into fuller hanging breasts that gave her a much curvier profile that everyone complimented her on. She had also grown out her usually short hair to make herself look more mature and she moved from being the girl next door into being stunningly eye-catching.
Serafall would never admit that she missed her more mousy-looking Sona-Tan or that she lost the cuteness that she loved so much. Women changed as they grew older and the only thing she regretted was that Sona had grown up a lot faster than she wanted her to. She would also regret never being able to claim her sister's virginity, or been there when it happened, or participated in any capacity.
Her life the last few months had been filled with nothing but regrets and Serafall was sure that after what just happened, it wasn't going to change anytime soon. When she dug her Devil phone out of the clutter on her desk and checked on the Devil Net what her secretary was talking about, she knew it was true.
The Phenex and Sitri clans had just announced that John Hansen and his medical research team had somehow cracked the fertility issue that had plagued the Devil Race for millennium. Any family that wanted to have a child, and could pass their stringent protocols and afford their processing fee, would have one. They guaranteed it.
Serafall groaned and dropped her phone to her desk and rested her head in her hands, because it was going to be an unmitigated disaster for both her and their government. She also needed to tell her fellow Satans right away. She stood with determination and grabbed her phone, then stormed out of her office as she shouted at her secretary to hold all her calls and to reschedule the appointments she had that afternoon.
It wasn't until Serafall was halfway through the emergency meeting with Sirzechs, Ajuka, and Falbium that she realized she no longer had a secretary and her schedule for that day would happen without her and would make her look even more incompetent. Of course, this opinion extended to her fellow Satans because they were letting the situation get too far out of hand and they didn't know how to fix things without wrecking everything they had built since they took over.
*
Who knew that feeding powerful souls inhabiting artifacts to Dementors would make them more powerful? I did, since I had done it a bunch of times before. Dealing with Balor's View was as simple as letting a Dementor gorge on the corrupting demonic spirit and it split into 32 Dementors that were twisted and partially mangled.
I had mostly expected that result and I had 100 Dementors consume them to dilute the contamination. Instead of sending them all to Azkaban, I dismissed them. It was the best way to ensure there was no chance of the soul reincorporating somehow.
Of course, I also had more Dementors consume all of the strong prisoners, just to make sure they couldn't overcome the security of the prison or break out somehow. I made sure to removed any Sacred Gears any of them had and stored them with the others. My collection was getting to be quite extensive with everyone in the Hero Faction and the Khaos Brigade.
I was getting to the point that I had more rare gears in storage than the Heaven System had in circulation, which was hilarious. I had Gabriel contact Michael and asked if he had a list of worthy people to take the gears and if they had any recommendations for who should be given what.
What I hadn't expected was a teary-eyed Gabriel to visit me afterwards with their list and carrying an extremely important bundle of cloth. The Shroud of Turin. I couldn't believe it. Their most sacred item had been stored in the Vatican's vaults and I hadn't raided it, because they didn't have an experiment lab on the premises. Their exorcist training camps on the lower levels of the basement didn't count.
“Michael has been debating handing this over to you for a while, just to see what you could make of it. When you asked us if we wanted most of the high-tier Sacred Gears for the church, including the True Longinus, it swayed him fully.” Gabriel said and placed the immaculately packed bundle on the coffee table. “Please keep us informed of what you find, John. You have permission to... to... to cut some of it off for testing.”
I stepped close and took her into a hug. “Gabriel, relax. I won't do anything so invasive, not unless I discover something beforehand and I'll immediately contact you and Michael to see how you want to proceed. It's the least I can do with one of your most sacred of relics.”
Gabriel sobbed and held onto me, her body shaking.
“You've never held it before?” I asked and she shook her head. “Is that the closest you've ever come to the son?”
“Y-yes. After... after He split himself into three and diminished His own powers, He tried to live a mortal life. After He died for mankind's sins, He became whole again and became more powerful.” Gabriel said as she calmed down. “The Shroud has a residue of Him and his power, just like the True Longinus.”
That statement made me think. If that was the case, then the Incinerate Anthem, the embodiment of the cross Jesus was crucified on, would also have a part of him inside of it. That was good, because I had it in my inventory with the other Sacred Gears and would need to add it to my research.
“If you want, you can join me in my lab for the first stage.” I offered.
Gabriel took several breaths and looked into my eyes. “No, John. I trust you. I don't need to look over your shoulder while you work. You need to concentrate and I'll just distract you.”
My eyes dropped to her still flat belly and went back to her face. “How much longer?”
Gabriel rubbed her belly and her smile lit up the room. “Thanks to our little trips, we only have to wait another month... or take another trip.”
I chuckled and put my hand on hers. “I can't deny your fellow angels from feeling anxious over it as much as Panacea and I do, so we'll wait for the normal time.”
Gabriel giggled and stood on her tippy-toes to kiss me. “I'll tell Michael you said that.”
I laughed and gave her another kiss. “All right, you can leave the Shroud in my capable hands. As soon as I find out something, anything at all, I'll step out of the lab to call you.”
“Thank you.” Gabriel said and let me go as a golden portal appeared above us. “I'll let Michael know you didn't argue about the list. BYE!”
I opened my mouth to argue that I didn't even look at it yet and saw her feet disappear in the portal before it closed. I picked up the bundle and the list and carried them downstairs to the basement and entered the main lab. I told Panacea what happened and she chuckled.
“She's getting quicker with her pranks and her escapes.” Panacea commented. “I can only imagine what your kids are going to be like.”
“They're going to be little angels, of course.” I said with a straight face.
Panacea made a snort sound and tried to not laugh, except the pun was too bad to ignore. She barked a laugh and snorted again, then laughed pretty hard. “More like... little devils! Ha ha ha!”
I laughed, too. It was going to be a neat experience, that was for sure.
After the brief bout of levity, we got to work. I made a copy of the bundled up Shroud, just in case, and performed the first round of examinations on the copy instead of the original. The results were... odd. We pulled out all the stops after that and brought out the spectrometers, the energy detectors, and the holographic scanners.
When we were done, we gave each other confused looks, because the results didn't make sense. In some of the tests, the thing existed. In others, there was exotic energy that was barely detectable and some of the scanners said that there was nothing in the sample area.
“There's definitely something screwy going on.” Panacea said. “Pull out the True Longinus and we'll see if that has some of the same energy. If both that and the Incinerate Anthem do, then we know we're onto something that no one else has discovered before.”
I agreed and we performed most of the same tests on both Longinus Sacred Gears. I even brought out one of the Holy Grail cups from Sephiroth Graal to include it in the testing. After three days, we had the results. All four things had traces of the same energy. It didn't really make sense until you put the clues together. Each thing was used by Jesus Christ.
The parts that didn't make sense were that the crown of thorns, the shroud, and the nails of crucifixion hadn't been made into Sacred Gears. They could have become powerful gears in the system with different powers, making a coherent whole, and all we had was the spear for attack, the grail to heal, and the crucifix to burn heretics. That was it.
“What can we do with this information?” Panacea asked me.
I sat down at a testing station and thought about it. I knew there was something profound I could do; but, it just wasn't clicking inside my head. What was I missing? I must have stayed silent for too long because Panacea snapped her fingers in front of my face to get my attention.
“Hey! You're drifting.” Panacea said with a huff. “It's been like ten minutes.”
My eyes went to her fingers and it finally clicked in my head. “Fuck me, it's so obvious!”
Panacea looked down at my crotch and back at my face. “Despite how interesting it might be to ride someone else's meat stick, I love my wife.”
“I love you, too.” Lake said from right beside us and we couldn't see her.
Panacea puckered her lips and she smiled after receiving a quick kiss.
I decided to ignore the fact she possibly gave Lake a meat stick. “We'll need a reworked bacta tank, a neutral biomass of amniotic fluid to act as a base, and we need to carefully deconstruct the shroud copy into a slurry to remove the cloth fibres while keeping everything else intact.”
Panacea stared at me for about 30 seconds before she sucked in a sharp breath. “You... you... want to try gathering enough genetic material for me to touch.”
“Only to see if it's viable. If it is, then we know we can add it to a birthing chamber. If we know we can do that much...” I said, leadingly.
“Oh, fuck.” Panacea whispered and sat beside me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“If the procedure works the first time, we have to use the original shroud.” I said and she nodded.
“The energies won't bond properly with the copy without your transference machine, which we can't use unless there's enough of a mind for the templates to transfer to.”
“It also means we'll lose the power from three of the original Sacred Gears.” I said.
“You can't use copies?” Panacea asked.
I gave her a deadpan look and she chuckled.
“Right, right. No half-assing things while trying to bring back the Son of God to life.” Panacea said and laughed. “I never thought I'd ever say something like that!”
“Yeah.” I said and we both sat there and didn't move or say anything else for a while.
It was a heavy decision we were about to make and you didn't just do it on a whim. It was going to be a huge commitment of time and resources, losing the potential of the original sacred gears, and possibly bringing a new era of religious fervour to the Christian and Catholic faiths.
Panacea took a deep breath and let it out, clapped her hands once, and stood. “Ushering in the second birth of the savior of mankind isn't going to happen by itself.”
I stood as well and smiled. “Let's get to work.”
*
Was it possible for two famous and insanely rich families to become even more famous and richer? Yes, it was. Both the Phenex and Sitri families saw an immediate income increase with all the pre-booking of their new service.
Thanks to subsidies offered by the Hansen Corporation, as in severely reduced fees to their 'second colonist' package, made the Devils that wanted children become that much more enticed by the offer. The couples that signed up for multiple births were given a choice of pre-built homes or apartments that were head and shoulders better than anything in the Underworld.
It was almost a humbling experience for the people that worked for the Phenex and Sitri families at their various medical business across the Underworld, because hundreds of people a day visited or called and asked about the procedure and how long it would take, if they had payment plans, when they could schedule an appointment, and if John Hansen was accepting concubine applications or contracts.
Surprisingly, a lot of those kinds of offers were from older and experienced married women and not young females looking for a good time. Apparently, the older Devils were the only ones that really appreciated what it meant to be able to have a child whenever they wanted and not a 1 in 10,000 chance.
It also brought forth what the Hansen Corporation's original offer meant. If they had accepted like the other factions had, they might have gotten the pregnancy packages for free. A few of the more sneaky Devils that had contacts with the Fallen Angel Faction and the Youkai, sent their own discreet inquiries and found out it was true. They had their own offers of 'free children' when they accepted the move.
It set off another round of riots against the current government and it was almost enough to topple them. Almost. Their answering media blitz accused the Hansen Corporation of treason against Devilkind and they threatened to bring charges against him if he didn't end his campaign of defamation against the government and the Four Satans.
Unfortunately, all that did was ensure their own population started to hate them for continuing to lead them wrong. If they hadn't fought against the changes his company introduced, everything would have been fine and no one would be upset. Instead, most of the Devils actively refused to comply with any of the policies the Satans tried to install.
It was not a situation that the current government wanted at all. They were actively booed whenever they left their offices, Serafall's show lost a significant portion of its audience, and most of the Devils in their army refused to deploy to fight or repress their friends and families. That caused a massive walkout of army recruits going AWOL and not reporting for duty.
The custodian and casual workers were next, so all the government offices and businesses were suddenly without any staff and no one was available to replace them. When Falbium and Ajuka finally got off their butts to try and fix the situation and force them back to work, it was far too late. All of the Devils that used to work under them had accepted the very cheap 'third colonist' packages and were no longer available.
The fact that the Heaven Faction announced the birth of Jesus Christ the Second and 12 new angels, barely rated as a fluff piece between the news coverage of the mess the Underworld was in.
*
“I really should hate you for inciting treason and undermining the New Satan Government.” Sona said as she cuddled into my side as we watched the latest action movie released under one of Ravel's media production companies. She had copied her brother's idea and used my massive media library to full effect to pretty much take over in the human world.
“It's only treason if I was a member of Devil society.” I joked and she smacked my arm.
“You're married to two prominent citizens, you idiot.” Sona said with a smile.
“Oops.” I said with a laugh. “It's not my fault the Satans are doubling down on being stupid instead of apologizing.”
Sona sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. “How is Gabriel feeling after giving birth to 12 angels?”
“She claims she's fine and it's like she was never pregnant.” I said and Sona huffed in annoyance. “Hey, now. Don't be upset that you became so womanly afterwards and she didn't. She's looked the same way for millennium.”
“Yes, yes. I know. Ever since her father made her and she was fully grown from birth.” Sona said with another sigh. “Stupid perfect Arch-Angel.”
I chuckled and turned my head to kiss her forehead. “You know everyone is jealous of you and Ravel because motherhood made you both even more beautiful, right? Since Gabriel's looks haven't changed, why be upset about it?”
Sona lifted her head to give me a searching look. She seemed to be thinking about something, then she nodded and put her head back down.
“You're going to believe me without questioning it?” I asked, a little surprised.
“I learned my lesson about that the hard way and I won't make that mistake again.” Sona said and hugged my arm. “If you tell me something, I'm going to believe it's true until someone else proves you wrong.”
I let her sit there watching the movie for about five minutes before I spoke again. “I emptied out the moon and filled it with precious metals to keep it balanced on a new orbit. It ensures the tides on Earth stay consistent planet-wide instead of rough like the wobble the moon's previous orbit caused.”
Sona's whole body stiffened for several seconds before she let out a long and exaggerated sigh. “You bastard.” She said with a defeated voice and let my arm go. “I have to ask for proof of that.”
“Eye, pause the movie. We'll be back in a little while.” I said and stood as I held a hand out to Sona. She took it and I hugged her close. “Moon Base Alpha.”
Sona gasped as we were sucked into the swirl of a portkey and she held onto me as we travelled from our home on Earth to the dark side of the moon. She blinked her eyes when we came to a stop and stared at the gigantic industrial complex there.
“It didn't take long at all to do it, really.” I said and led her to the control room. “Working out the math for the conversion was the hard part. That and keeping the moon's crust intact. It's taken thousands of impacts from passing asteroids and meteorites.” I sat her down at the main console and started the presentation. “By the way, no one in the solar system has to worry about that anymore. The automatic defense grid will take care of any threats.”
Sona gave me a blank stare and didn't say anything.
“Yep, I still have problems giving news like that.” I said and turned her head to the monitor. I started the video and checked on the maintenance robots. I send electronic praise to them and they all beeped happily in response.
Ten minutes later, Sona stood to glare at me. “Show me the central chamber.”
I nodded and led her over to the crew elevator. We entered and rode it down just over a thousand miles to the core of the moon. Since there was barely any gravity on the moon, it took only a few minutes. When the doors opened, Sona caught her breath at the gigantic glittering chamber.
“The main lining is 10 miles of stainless steel, with a layer of a mile of titanium and a thin layer of a few hundred feet of aluminum coating it. Then there's a few miles of solid gold, just to make the thing look pretty, and I added various colors of jewels and scattered them all over the surface.”
Sona didn't respond and walked, almost stumbled really, to the viewing platform.
“I know it's a bit much; but, I liked how the one I made for Ophis came out and had to make one for us. I wanted it a lot closer to home than hers and since this moon is pretty much dead weight by solar system terms, I figured no one would care if they ever found out.”
“J-J-J-John.” Sona barely breathed as she stared at the impossible wonder before her.
“So, what do you think?” I asked her and she turned to look at me.
“I... I think... you are insane.” Sona whispered and walked over to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and smiled. “I'm also very glad that I married you and ignored my sister's rants about you.”
I gave her a tender kiss and she made a happy sound. “I am, too.”
“Good, because I would hate to kick your ass if you weren't.” Sona said with a smile.
“I feel so loved.” I said with a matching smile.
Sona kissed me and let me go. “This was a wonderful anniversary present, John. Thank you.”
“What?” I asked and she gave me a glare.
“Don't tell me you forgot.” Sona said, her glare intensifying.
“No, of course not. I could never forget that.” I said with confidence and she lost the glare. “It's just that this was my side project and not your gift.”
Sona glanced around the huge glittering space and back at me as she crossed her arms.
I chuckled. “What's mine is ours, honey. You know that. I don't have to gift this to you, since you already own it.”
Sona nodded. “Then where's my present?”
“I thought we were waiting until after the movie?” I asked instead.
“That was before your unlimited riches of a side project distracted me.” Sona said and waved a hand at the chamber.
I nodded and took her hand. I led her back over to the elevator and we rode it back to the surface. I closed and locked everything up again and went to the Stargate. I dialed a particular address and her eyebrows rose at the odd sequence. It activated and I led her through it and we appeared on the other side.
“Where are we? I didn't recognize the address.” Sona asked.
I led her out of the gate room and into the command center. I waved for her to sit behind the expensive solid oak desk and had her place her hand on the top.
“Command Console unlocked. DNA verified. Welcome to the Ratings Games Academy, Headmistress Sitri. It's nice to finally meet you.” A female voice said from her desk.
Sona's face showed shock as she stared at the desk.
“Can you change the vidwall to show the grounds, please?” I asked.
“Of course. It will just take a moment.” The female voice said and the wall behind me flickered and showed a top-down view of the extensive grounds that covered several miles of land in all directions. “Would you like for me to begin the introduction video?”
“Go ahead. I haven't seen the final cut yet.” I said and walked around the desk. I took a chair out of inventory to sit beside a stunned Sona as she stared at the vidwall.
The presentation was great and showed off all the different gyms, exercise grounds, testing areas, classrooms, labs for power experimentation, and the arenas for example Ratings Games. The last thing they showed were the temporary Evil Pieces that would let students try different roles to find out what they were best at, rather than being stuck as something they weren't good at.
“I... I... I l-love y-you, J-John. I r-really, r-really do.” Sona said, her voice wavering.
I turned to look and saw her face was wet with happy tears. I put an arm around her shoulders and she turned and cried into my chest as she clung to me tightly. Her dream had come true and she didn't have years ahead of her to try and get funding, or find a small place for a campus, or have to worry about it being discovered, since it was covered by the protective and defensive wards.
“Happy Anniversary, love.” I said and Sona cried harder.
Sona started to calm down and her lips started kissing my neck, then my cheek, then my lips. She pushed me onto the desk and mounted me. Not surprisingly, her eyes flicked towards the vidwall every few seconds because it still showed the grounds of her academy. It drove her on to new heights as she thanked me multiple times for making all of her dreams come true.
*
A time of relative peace seemed to settle around the world as everyone but the humans moved to their new homes and made them their own. Even the Devils had smartened up and chose to move to relative safety and they loved their new world.
The New Satan Government had no choice and accepted the way things were going to be, except it was much too late for them to do so. When they tried to buy land for their offices to establish their power base on the new world, they were officially and publicly refused. When they tried to buy different land using proxies and tricks, both them and the proxy's families were blocked and blacklisted.
It frustrated them to no end to be blocked from governing their own people and they tried, quite fruitlessly, to pressure both the people and the Hansen Corporation into allowing them access. They were refused again and called out for their tactics that the disbanded Old Satan Faction used to use to gain their own power.
Unfortunately, this also meant most of the Devils moved their businesses to the new world, since they mostly sold to their ow people anyway. Also, having access to previous Pillar Family lands without restrictions had made a lot of them very happy. By the end of the year, the only people left in the Underworld were the ones that were too stubborn to change their ways.
The Four Satans ruled a mostly empty region and they had no one to blame but themselves. On the positive side, they had the resources of the entire Underworld at their disposal. On the down side, that was all they had.
Sirzechs sat in his almost bare office that had no paperwork for him to work on. Grayfia was his Queen, maid, and wife, in that order, and she stood behind him and radiated annoyance. She wouldn't betray him or their family, even if word had come from reliable sources about the Hansen Corporation's breakthrough with Evil Piece removal without consequences.
That they made the discovery was astonishing by itself, then they used it on Sona Sitri's academy students like it was a normal thing to change out pieces like changing the clothes you wore. The mock Ratings Games they broadcast over their media network made the professional games seem tame, which showcased how rigged the old ones were.
Devils trying to prove themselves went all out and it showed. They fought to win and those victories gave them confidence and the losses were easily accepted because it drove them to work harder. Each and every Devil had something they were good at and they would succeed, thanks to Sona's teaching strategies.
“Do you think he would stop blocking us if I apologized and resigned?” Sirzechs asked.
Grayfia let out a sigh and put a hand on her husband's shoulder. “He would know you didn't really mean it.”
Sirzechs turned in his chair to look at her face. “Is that my wife or my Queen talking?”
“Your wife.” Grayfia said and then she frowned. “As your Queen, I fully encouraged your stance and believed you would persevere. You had all of the political and personal power you needed and it should have been an easy win for you.”
Sirzechs sighed. “Then he removed the political power with almost no effort and my personal power meant nothing, since I couldn't physically attack him. My position was easily neutralized and he worked around me instead of working with me to transition our people to another home.”
Grayfia wasn't going to remind him that she supported him again.
Sirzechs gave her a sad smile. “Has mother asked to bring Millicas to the new Gremory lands?”
Grayfia nodded. “Only you and I are banned from transitioning the gates.”
Sirzechs sighed again. “Do you want me to release you from your vows?”
Grayfia shook her head and climbed onto his lap to kiss him. “I gave up everything to become your Queen. I'm just annoyed there's nothing I can do to fix things.”
Sirzechs kissed her. “Go back in time and slap me for my response to his unbelievable offer of an entire terraformed planet for us to live on.”
Grayfia hugged him to comfort him. “It's not your fault you didn't believe his ridiculous claim.”
Sirzechs opened his mouth to say it was, then thought about it. If he had accepted things, wouldn't his position still been the same? He would be left powerless because everything was taken care of domestically. His eyes widened and he gave his wife a shocked stare.
“What is it?” Grayfia asked. “What has you so nervous?”
“John Hansen is the undeclared Satan of the Devil Race.” Sirzechs whispered. “If he realizes it...”
“He would have total and complete power over the Devils. All of us.” Grayfia whispered back. “He could command us to do anything and we would have to do it, as mandated by the original Lucifer.”
The two of them sat in silence after that revelation.
“It's a good thing all I want is for people to live and be happy.” John Hansen's voice said.
Neither Devil jumped at the voice that shouldn't be there.
“I won't command that, though. People are people and trying to control them to that degree is a measure of insanity that even I won't attempt. I might be ambitious sometimes to get thins done; but, I'm not insane. I have gone too far sometimes, I admit. I didn't this time.”
“This... was you... having restraint?” Grayfia asked before she could stop herself.
“I believe Azazel once warned you about challenging me and making me perform outrageously to prove I could do it. He was right to warn you. I could have removed all of you right from the start.” John said and both Devils felt the blood drain from their faces. “I didn't and dealt with things as they came and here we are. At the end of a long struggle.”
“Mister Hansen, I would like to apologize...” Sirzechs started to say.
John's laughter interrupted him. “I'm lifting the bans as a favor to my wives. My concession was that anyone coming through the gates or teleportation circles that were on the banned lists will be tagged and watched. It's unobtrusive and it's just to keep an eye on the dissidents.”
Neither Devil liked being classified like that.
“Have fun visiting your mother, Sirzechs. She says hello and she also has news you're going to love.” John said, clearly amused. “Grayfia, there's an appointment for you and your husband next week at the main fertility clinic.”
Grayfia slapped a hand over her husband's mouth to shut him up. “We'll be there.”
“I'll let them know about the confirmation.” John said and a teleportation circle appeared on the desk and three 'basic colonist' packages appeared there. “Good luck with your new lives.”
“Thank you.” Grayfia said and meant it. Her son wasn't going to be ostracized from Devil Society and he would have a sibling soon.
“You can thank Sona. She makes me do uncomfortable things like all good wives do to keep their husbands in check.” John said with a laugh. “End transmission.”
Grayfia let her husband's mouth go and opened one of the packages, secretly happy to have access to everyone on the unblockable communications network. She put her comm badge on and opened the other package and handed it to her King. He took it and put it on without comment. She hopped off his lap and opened the last package to grab the badge.
“Millicas.” Grayfia said and left the room at a fast walk to deliver it.
Sirzechs watched her go and resigned himself to living a normal life from now on. He just hoped he could adjust before he became too bored from not having any duties to keep him busy.
*
Ten years, fifty years, a hundred years, a thousand years... time marched on and all the different races thrived on their own worlds. They were never overcrowded, because they kept being slowly expanded with magical energy. It soon became common practice for every room, apartment, house, mansion, and outdoor space to be expanded to accommodate the ever-growing populations.
Thanks to the Heaven System and Jesus Christ the Second ascending to Heaven by choice, he kept all of his Father's works sealed where they belonged and they never bothered anyone. He called in some help from John Hansen himself and they reinforced everything and made sure that nothing would ever come from the mistakes of the past.
It was a time of peace and happiness that everyone enjoyed, especially for John Hansen and his family. They had claimed the Earth's moon for themselves and eventually covered the entire surface with a single environmental dome and energy shield before they converted the dead outer shell into a vibrant green space that everyone in the solar system liked visiting.
The Naboo Royal Palace was the crown the moon wore and it had generations of John's family in residence. Everyone adored his family and they had become friends with all the different races. They all lived happily for their entire lifespans of 10,000 years and no one had any complaints about their lives.
Space travel was never developed, because the Stargates connected everyone in the solar system into a giant melting pot of communities and cultures that everyone partook in. They were all happy and content and no one ever had any other conflicts whatsoever.
*
I sat on the top of the palace after everyone chose to not spend time in the regeneration chambers. The only beings that wouldn't be dying when the sun exploded, the Angels, had already retreated to Heaven after thanking me for saving them and everyone for as long as I could.
I felt happy at being thanked for it, since it rarely ever happened. I had worked hard to get everything perfected and running smoothly, despite the bumps in the road and the distractions. I couldn't complain about it, though. It was a great life and I didn't regret anything. As the sun flared a bright red and started to expand past Venus, I knew it was time.
I took out my masterpiece, the ultimate King Piece. Inside was all the programming I could fit into it and as much magical power as thousands of years and copied gears could instill into it. It pulsed a bright gold, possibly because of the truncated Heaven System inside. I had cracked the magical code and figured out all the things I couldn't decipher for hundreds of years... and I didn't use it.
Why, you ask? Because I was scared. I've always been baseline human and this would change me from that into... into... I wasn't sure what. Mainlining my own DNA and boosting my own powers was something that terrified me, because I knew it fundamentally altered a body into something else.
If this didn't work, my power wouldn't activate and I would die a few seconds later as the sun's surface consumed the moon with me on it. Was it worth it to take that chance? Did I live long enough? Had I learned enough? Was I content with everything?
As the sun's surface grew towards me, I made my decision. I had lived a good life and if it ended here, it was enough. I pushed the glowing Ultimate King Piece into my chest and closed my eyes.