Aftermath (1)

Part Three: War Marches and Blood Falls

Prologue:

Beulus' POV:

"What the hell is going on?"

"Are you telling me that I paid my money to look at a black screen?!"

"This is bullshit! I don't care if sales are final, I'm going to get my refund!"

The people around me were growing extremely impatient, and even I was feeling worried. A black screen was not a part of the plan, but I still knew my job. I had to make sure that, no matter the situation, everyone who walked into the coliseum stayed for the finale that Quis was going to provide. People were standing up, and I felt the energy shift to a, "let's all leave", energy. I couldn't realistically convince every single individual here, as that would be extremely ineffective, so instead, I had to figure out something else.

I moved my head around, trying to figure out a way to get what I needed, when I suddenly recalled an important feature of the coliseum. I ran as fast as I could to the other side of the arena and into a specific opening on the outskirts of the bleachers. It was in this room that I found a cone-looking object, it was exactly what I was looking for. I grabbed it and ran back into the stands before fiddling with it until I activated it.

I put my mouth near the smaller side of the cone and began speaking, and when I did, despite me speaking in only a normal voice, it went through the entire coliseum, "Hello, can you all hear me?"

As I spoke, everyone instinctively turned to look at me, stopping those about to leave the main area. I sighed in relief before continuing my speech, "Good. Alright, everyone, I'm gonna have to ask you all to stay seated in the main area and just wait for a bit." My words were commanding, and I knew that. I specifically made them ridiculous so that people would be interested in my thoughts. Why was I so sure that they should stay?

I heard a voice from the crowd of people yell out at me, "Why should I stay Beulus?! I'd rather spend my time getting my money back and then grabbing a drink than staying here and doing nothing. We've already waited almost ten minutes for something to happen, but nothing has. I've been patient enough."

I thought about his words for a moment, before giving my reply to everyone there, "Why should you guys stay here? Well, that's quite simple..." I gave a giddy grin and said with excitement in my voice, "I've got a good feeling that something really interesting is going to turn on any moment now, and I'd hate for you all to miss it."

My words seemed to have dumbfounded the entire arena for a moment, before some dropped his arms in defeat, "Fine. I'd rather waste a couple more minutes than deal with Beulus' yapping later." And just like that, everyone who had given up on waiting any longer sat back down with similar comments.

"I guess that Buelus' gut is usually right, so I'll give it a try this time."

"He did buy me a drink once... I suppose I'll pay him back with this."

Soon enough everyone was seated again, and we all stood there in silence, waiting for something to show up on the screen. About a minute passed with nothing and I could feel the air return to its previous irritable state. But then, all of the screens suddenly turned back on, but instead of how it was normally sanctioned, every screen was focused on one point of view. The video showed a view that was in the middle of the jungle, but after a few seconds, it moved forward, finding itself in a clearing.

This clearing was very similar to a view from before as it was the crater that Quis was fighting the Salamander in before, only now, the Salamander was nowhere to be seen. The camera turned around, and suddenly sound returned to the stadium. The sounds of fighting were apparent as the camera zoomed in on what looked like the old man fighting some kind of lady. It was only a couple of seconds later that I was able to figure out the woman's identity, it was a Devil.

Murmurs spread throughout the coliseum as this fact circulated, but eventually, it turned silent again as everyone became mesmerized by the intense fight. When the Devil transformed, I could feel the nerves in the arena tighten. This was more than just a sport now, there were actual stakes involved. And then, when the old man jumped out of the way and the camera widened to reveal Quis shooting out a bolt, the coliseum turned silent. It was already silent, but this was a different kind of silence now. Before it was the silence of nervousness, but now it was the silence of awe.

The bolt exploded the Devil's body into chunks, and some even sprayed onto the Video Device itself. Then the bolt that did the damage suddenly returned to Quis like a boomerang, and the only remaining piece of the Devil, the head, landed right into Quis's grip as he yelled out loud, "This is what happens when you attempt to harm my sect! My family!!! I am Quis!! The leader of the newest Faction to be formed in this sect!!! THE RESISTANCE!!!"

...

The entire arena was silent, fixated on those words, not just the words themselves, but the meaning behind the words. Everyone seemed to be thinking different thoughts, and experiencing different emotions, for me, however, I only felt pride. Pride that Quis was able to grow so far. Pride that we were able to pull our faction's debut off.

I felt proud that our faction finally had a name that everyone in the sect would refer to it by.

The Resistance.

____________________________________________

Quis' POV:

"The feed's been shut off."

With confirmation from the old man, I dropped the Devil's head on the ground and then fell to the ground along with it. I was exhausted. I had just fought for almost 30 minutes straight, and it wasn't leisure either, it was an acute, prolonged, razor-sharp battle. It was without a doubt, the toughest fight I've had since landing in this world, which was obvious when I looked at the fact that I wasn't able to take care of everything that I wanted to.

Unfortunately, Spiravit was still alive. I'm not sure what he did yet, but I knew it right when I saw only wood splinters shoot out from the tree. He must've been hiding a Fruit or something like that from even the school itself, otherwise I would have been aware of it when going over the student's files. It was a pity for sure, some would even call it a failure, but that's what you need to expect when you don't have all the information. Knowledge is power, and it's the strong that collect it. I wasn't able to get enough information, therefore I wasn't able to do what I needed to do.

I wasn't too hung up about it though. I've made mistakes before, and I'm sure that I'll make more in the future. The only thing that matters is that I don't let those mistakes hold onto me. It was easy to let your mistakes drown you in the sea of regret, which made them so dangerous. But I learned long ago that holding onto your mistakes only breeds more mistakes. It was best to review your mistake and then move on.

So that begs the question, what did I do wrong this time? There were a lot of things that went wrong, but there was a root cause for all of them. It was the fact that my plan revolved around someone else holding all of the information. The chain was made so that if one link was attacked, the entire thing would crumble. But if I just had some input of information, I could have changed the plan more according to the situation. I shouldn't have put all of my money on the old man just because he was strong within this sect. There were people outside of this sect I had to account for.

To conclude, I was too narrow-minded. I have spent so much time inside of the sect that I've forgotten that outside forces exist. From here on out, my eyes are set on taking over the entire sect, so I need to be ready for foreigners to interfere, in fact, I should use it in my favor. And like that, I moved on.

Yes, Spiravit would be difficult to deal with, but regretting would get me nowhere. Instead, I should figure out how to tame him, or at least quell him. But that wasn't the only thing I had to worry about right now. I had a couple of fronts I had to work on, mainly me being the leader of a new faction. That wasn't something I could just shrug off and figure out on itself, I had to get things going soon. But I mustn't be too hasty.

If I struck too quickly then I'd only seem desperate, however, if I struck too late, then I'd miss the golden chance to cash in on this boost of popularity. Therefore, I decided to hit tomorrow. Once everyone's had a night to sleep on it, then it wouldn't be too fresh in their minds, but it would also be fairly vivid, allowing their fantastical desires to be even more exploitable. So the question was: What do I have to do from now to then for the effectiveness to be maximized?

There were many different things I could do, but first, I had to focus on the things that I had to do. I had a decent checklist in mind. First I had to rally up my troops, right now was the best time to tighten their bonds with each other and me, making them more likely to stay in the faction without too much more interference on my part. Then I had to finally take Spiravit's evidence away from him one and for all. Finally, I had to take care of a more precarious matter.

I'm broke.

All of the money and resources I had been getting were through Convir, and so were all of the people in my faction, which I now had to provide for. What could I do to quickly and decisively get enough resources to keep myself strong and those around me happy? The first thing that comes to mind when I think of easy money is stealing. But what would I steal, and from whom?

Well, the former was a tricky question, but the latter was much easier to answer. I would steal from the Sect Faction. They easily had the most resources out of me and the L'Amour Family, and they were going to be my main adversary now, so it was common sense to steal from them. However, the "what" in stealing was a lot more difficult to figure out. What was it that I could steal that would give me a mass amount of resources that wouldn't run out too quickly... Perhaps... perhaps it's time that I get into the game of resource points.

It wasn't a bad idea, but the thing that kept me from taking the leap was that it just took too much manpower to use... 'hmm, no. I guess... if I don't have manpower then why don't I create manpower?... That's not a bad idea at all...'

It was obvious to me that the perpetrator behind the Devil attack was the Sect Leader, as it made the most sense. But whatever his plan was, it seemed to have failed, and I bet he was hurting from the price he had to make to use those Devils. This meant that he would be struggling, especially under the ambitious rule of Convir and Medisma. Their goal was simply a merging of the sect, but that was only for now, and the Sect Leader saw it the same way as I did.

It was the perfect opportunity... for... an alliance...

Suddenly my brain began moving in circles as the adrenalin left my body. I was experiencing the ultimatum of drowsiness. You could even call it hypnosis. I was so mentally and physically worn out that I just couldn't hold onto the railways of consciousness any longer. I put my hand up and was able to give out these few words, "Hey... old man, when we get back to home base, please make sure to wake me up after a couple... of... hours..."

I was out cold.