3 Chapter 3

In a luxurious room in the Underworld, Ravel Phenex was written down in another notebook. Being 15 years old now she was made to join the first year in Kuoh Academy by her family as to keep an eye on her brother's fiance. The only reason why she was not in school today that was the start of classes was due to her wanting to check again some things.

Namely, check again her list regarding what she wanted in her Peerage.

Yes, as a pureblood devil and the only daughter and princess of the Phenex House, she naturally had the right to obtain her own Peerage. Originally her brother complained and wanted to add her to his own peerage, allegedly it was because he wanted to keep her around to protect her, but she thought it was entirely possible it might also be to have a little sister in his peerage just to show off how he had 'a little of everything'.

He was a reprehensible pervert, and she knew it very well. They were devils, after all, modesty and chastity were human concepts more than anything and what was socially acceptable was much more arrangement than what was for humans, but even for devils Riser was still a bit much. Their mother always said he would grow up in time, but Ravel decided to not join him after he started referencing himself as 'glorious eternal phoenix Riser the great'. Sure, he was 14 years old at the time and going through a phase, but it was so incredibly embarrassing to have to call him that every time that she decided she wouldn't join his peerage anymore.

... It was still better than the time he decided to come to bring her home after school and had his peerage spread rose petals where he would pass just to show how amazing he was.

But, by the end of the day, she was his sister and she would give some help to at least scout Rias's movements as her parents requested. Having the engagement broken by Rias in the basis of Riser being too weak would be a humiliation for Riser and the entire Phenex family, after all.

"I hope this works." Ravel said, hoping to find someone that could help her. This was her first real outing on Earth, a place where she would be able to just be Ravel instead of 'princess'. It was not her wanting to run away from being who she was or pretend she wasn't a member of the Phenex house, just that she wanted a vacation from the excess expectations that were trusted upon her constantly by her parents and the need to babysit an older brother who was more invested in managing to complete the Great Stud challenge than anything else (fuck one different girl each day of a full year and film them all before posting an AMV of it).

Looking over her requirements for her peerage one could note something a bit unique though. In the Queen section, there was no mention of the Queen she desires having any specific trait or personality trait, unlike for her other pieces her Queen's main requirement was to be strong, that is it.

Ravel knew herself well enough. She was not particularly strong amongst her family, her potential was average and she needed at least one truly strong person that could help protect her and that she could trust would do precisely that. If she couldn't find someone like that then it was entirely possible her brother would send his harem/peerage/sex slaves/orgie mates to watch over her.

As she finished writing down her wishes for a peerage she was about ready to get to Kuoh. Her mansion (because of course her family build one) was all ready for use and she wanted to get there already.

FLAP FLAP

"Oh, little ember." Ravel said as the demi-phoenix appeared top her table. Little ember was a demi-phoenix, a type of bird with a certain degree of lineage similar to that of the Phoenix, but unlike the Phenex house members, the demi-phoenixes were not capable of offense at all. They only had the self-healing ability as well as the ability to teleport via flames.

They were extremely popular as familiars, but only the Phenex House that also shared True Phoenix bloodline in an even larger level could fully master them and use a special trick.

Memory Sharing.

Little ember looked at Ravel for a moment before huffing in an almost human fashion before hitting the table three times with its little feet.

Seeing this Ravel snapped out of it before speaking.

"Oh, right. Almost forgot." As she said thus she rummaged amongst her things before taking out a small bag of seed. The bird's eyes shined as it chirped happily while Ravel fed it its favorite seeds.

After a good while of this, the bird gave an audible burp and wanted to lay down and rest, only to remember it still had one final job to do before it could go rest freely.

Flying to Ravel's head it touched its head to Ravel's forehead. Memories of the day were shown as the relevant information was all transferred.

Ravel's eyes shined at what she saw, especially when she remembers the conditions that Sona told Rias that Ace demanded and his strength. For Ravel, it was very suitable overall.

If she had a strong Queen that could help protect her and her peerage, it would be great. About him doing his own deals without needing her consent, it was also acceptable since she doesn't care much about any random deals as her family is filthy rich, she doesn't need money from odd jobs. Besides, she was confident in her own administrative skills, if he worked for her there was every chance he would eventually accept her advice in deals.

And as for demanding money for any work besides saving her and other peerage members' lives, she was a Phenex. Money was the one thing she wouldn't be able to lack even if she tried!

What if he wanted to get paid for work? She could pay millions every week and it wouldn't cost her more than a single hour of work at most per week, if that.

With a chance like that in front of her, how could Ravel hesitate? Moving quickly she activated a magic circle then and there, only stopping to take with her the suitcase carrying her Evil pieces as she teleported to Kuoh.

There was a Queen to obtain there!

///---///

In the clubroom of the ORC Ace was sitting in a comfortable chair as Rias and Sona stared at him intensely.

Deciding to get some things straight Ace spoke up.

"First, regardless of who becomes my king, I will try and avoid any conflicts with the rest. I don't particularly love fighting and unless a deal that is extremely profitable appears I wouldn't want to act against either of your peerages. As such, even if no deal can be struck between us here you do not need to worry about me."

The two kings hearing this were a bit surprised with Sona speaking up.

"That is interesting. It seems like we can cooperate moving forward then regardless of you joining us or not."

Ace just smiled at these true words and spoke.

"Of course, as long as there is money or some worthwhile deal I don't particularly care much about who I am making a deal with. Me saying this is just to let you properly understand that I am not your enemy nor do I intend to become one if not pushed to it, a cooperative relationship can be achieved without much issue. I quite like living in this town, my family is here, and if I had to move to another city I would have to pay rent." Ace joked in part, but was also quite honest. If he had to move out things would get too complicated and uncertain, unless a deal too good to ignore showed up he wouldn't want to go against these two devil kings.

Well, a good enough deal or if he needed to protect his family. If either of these two touched Isane or her parents then he would have to make sure that these devils feel 1000 times whatever they caused his family.

Getting back on track Rias was the first one to speak.

"I heard your terms of the agreement from Sona. As long as you agree to join my Peerage I will agree to those terms, with one condition." Rias said confidently.

"That being?" Ace asked, wondering what condition precisely she wanted.

"You must help me win in a certain rating game." Rias said and Ace shook his head.

"Sorry, no deal." he said tiredly and with a bit of resignation.

It was one of the annoying aspects of Ace's Essence. When he makes a deal both sides are obligated to fulfill the contract no matter what or there are all sorts of consequences.

For Ace, if he fails a contract he would be unable to make any new deals with other worlds for a large period of time that would only lessen if he paid enough money.

If Rias didn't add the stipulation of helping her win the rating game things would be simple enough. He could easily enough help her in the rating game, if she paid for his participation he would naturally do his best to win, but he would not instantly assume he can 100% win the rating game without actually knowing Riser or the situation in the day.

If anything happens and Rias loses, then Ace wouldn't have fulfilled his side of the deal, and that would be very, very bad.

Rias, hearing his denial, looks crestfallen and she wanted to say more when Sona spoke up.

"Then, how about joining me? I can also accept your deal if you join my peerage." Sona says and Ace looks a bit more interested.

As long as she doesn't ask for anything absurd he can accept Sona's deal.

"Is there any stipulation on your side regarding what you will want me to do? Within the scope that it doesn't violate my rules, of course." Ace questioned, fearing what she might request but hoping it wouldn't be that much.

Sona shook her head at the assumption that her request would be too much and said.

"No, you will just need to join the student council like the others. That is my only condition." That was the objective of Sona. She was quite confident that, should Ace be close to and interact more with herself and the rest of the peerage he would eventually be fond of them and would be more willing to help.

As for Ace, an unpleasant expression appeared on his face. He honestly did not want to join the student council. If he joined he would have to arrive earlier to school and get out later, missing classes would be harder and it would overall be a big annoyance for him since he would be far too locked by this arrangement.

"Is me joining the Student Council an absolute prerequisite on your side?"

"Yes, it is." Sona said before adjusting her glasses and giving out some extra 'bait' to attract Ace to her side. "My sister is the Satan responsible for diplomacy, I am quite sure I can organize for you both to meet and she can introduce you to several people of interest."

Well, that honestly sounded like more bad than good for Ace. While he did want more people to make deals with, there was no way a Satan responsible for diplomacy would allow Ace to make deals freely with other Pantheons and factions, especially if Serafal is the one introducing him. If he was in someone else's Peerage then it wouldn't be quite as extreme an interference, especially if both sides agree to it, but someone who focuses on diplomacy would never allow it if he was under her influence.

In Ace's point of view, both Rias and Sona had some large inconveniences, but he was tending more to Rias's side. Worst comes to worst he could always just try his best in making sure the peerage was decently strong enough for the fight and hope things worked out and deck them into enough stuff that they could win 99% of the time. For instance, if Rias could arrange for him enough money and connections it shouldn't be impossible to get his hands on the fragment of a legendary weapon that was broken in the past. Those should be more collectibles or trinkets for some people, not impossible to be sold.

If Ace had something like that he could always build a few Symphogears. With one of those in hand, he could also trade away part of the talent for the singing of the girls in the Academy where the protagonists of Symphogear go to. Pretty sure the girls there were all secretly selected to join the academy due to their phonic gain being potentially enough to let them turn into symphogear users.

If he could get their phonic gain production ability he could then use a symphogear, which was extremely powerful. After all, Symphogears are such that they amplify the power of a relic's fragment too many times over to the point they can even go beyond the original in power. If he created an Excalibur Symphogear, who knows how strong this armor would become, maybe even Longinus level!

"... Are the conditions you two desire non-negotiable?" Ace asked for confirmation. "They are a bit much, if you ask me. The requirements for my time if I were to join the student council is far too large as it would need me present in school every day from Monday to Saturday from early morning to late afternoon, if not night time as well as there would also be the work as a devil to manage so I wouldn't have much in the way of free time to go get my own deals. Besides, having the Satan responsible for diplomacy around would likely cause more problems than it is worth it due to wanting to control what I can and can't do regarding deals with other groups. After all, she should care more about the race instead of a mere peerage member of her little sister's peerage, so even if she can open doors for me she would be controlling me far too much for me to work as I desire." As Ace said this Sona frowns, realizing the problems in her request.

She didn't see joining the Student Council as a bad thing since all the members of her peerage were happy to join and she loved the council as it gave her the experience she needed for her dream. However, it really did eat up a lot of time, she would know seeing as she normally only gave her peerage rest during the afternoons on Sunday as Sunday morning was reviewing what happened during the week and preparing for the week to come.

Basically, Sona led a white-collar company that gave its workers little rest time and demanded around 10 to 12 hours a day of work from Monday to Saturday with Sundays being 'free' with only 5 to 6 hours of work.

Of course, her peerage would work perfectly well together, they lacked the time to learn how NOT to be around each other.

"As for winning a certain rating game, as miss Rias put it... well, that one is simply impossible to agree right away. I don't yet know exactly who I would be facing, the conditions for battle, the ramifications of it, chances of foul play, the abilities of the others that would participate in either side, the stakes involved, the ramifications from winning, etcetera etcetera. With my strength alone I can't be sure that I can determine who wins or loses a rating game. From what my old teacher who instructed me in what I know Rating Games are group fights where the king is the deciding factor, if you as king loses then even if I win all fights, we would still lose the rating game. All my deals are 100% fulfilled, and I don't intend to risk that by blindly trusting I can accomplish something without the information to decide if it is feasible or not."

Rias, hearing this, felt that it was unfortunately reasonable. Her accepting all his terms was a plus, but her simply demanding him to win a rating game without even telling him against who was a bit much. For instance, what if the game was against her brother or a top 10 rating game expert?

While true that it was far from it, she let her words vague and it resulted in him denying her request to join right away.

Seeing the expressions of both Rias and Sona, Ace felt a bit uncomfortable as he DID intend on turning into a Devil. But the terms given were too much right now.

As such, after a short time to think, he continued.

"How about this, I will give you both a fair chance. I will try to visit and accompany both of you for the next few days as to better know both. Rias, I will give you a fair chance to show me what you and your Peerage can do. You must provide me with all the information you can obtain from the opponent you desire to beat, no matter how insignificant the information might be as well as what information you can about your peerage, and let me see your practice. As long as I can see a way to achieve a certain victory I would be willing to join you. If you can't do as I requested, then I will join Sona under the condition that she must either let me not be a part of the council, or make sure her sister doesn't interfere with my future deals. Of course, if in the meanwhile someone else shows up that can give me a better offer, I will take that person's offer. All I am offering is a chance for consideration, not a promise of servitude moving forward."

As Ace explained this he motioned to the side and spoke up.

"Also, I have felt the smell of fallen angels in town. I had the impression that the fallen and the devils are enemies and this town is considered devil territory, were these fallen authorized to come here? I don't want to accidentally get involved in a race war before I even join a side, so I'd rather know if there is any danger or not."

At this, both girls were slightly shocked as they had yet to notice the fallen angels invading this town. The town's security system was not exactly good, after all, and in most times even the strays were usually found by depending on warnings and missions from the higher-ups in the Underworld. That there were fallen angels in town, it was slightly worrying.

For Ace, he just pointed that out due to wanting to distract the two a bit as to not focus all their attention on him and only him. That, and because he wanted an excuse for when he inevitably attacked the fallen angels since he had no doubts they would try something against Isane sooner or later. He wanted to push the blame into the devils, and if they were investigating the fallen's actions at the time then no one would believe it was a random human who killed everyone even if the devils said it was.

Anyway, Ace would only become a devil after at least a week, and in the meanwhile, he would take advantage of this time to take down those four fallen angels.

Sona spoke up then.

"I will inquire with my sister, but if the fallen invaded without any forewarning into our lands then you can deal with them as you want. The Grigory and the devils are on a cold war that can implode, but if the fallen enter devil territory and are killed by a third party then the Grigory can't make a fuss about it." Sona said, her being the one doing so due to having more experience with this sort of thing.

Being forced to accompany her sister to meetings since young would have this sort of effect.

As for Rias, she wasn't that interested in these fallen angels, her focus more on how to get Ace on her side or, at the very least, help her with training. If he could, as a human, get so strong then he surely can help her peerage get stronger as well.

And she also had to consider how to approach Isane. The girl clearly had a sacred gear inside her just like Ace and if she joined Rias then Ace would likely be more willing to cooperate, two birds with one stone.

Ace left the place and five minutes later a twin-tailed blond intruder showed up. Her eyes ran from one side to the other as the two devil heiresses looked at the new addition with surprise.

"Ravel? What are you doing here?" Rias asked before her face turned cold as she continued. "You came alone or will your brother appear as well?"

"N-No, I just came to say hello since I will be joining school starting tomorrow. It is only proper to greet you both as the kings in town so... hello. I will be going now, by your leave." Ravel said, gave a polite bow, and left the place.

Rias and Sona looked at one another, the same idea running through their minds.

"... She was spying on me, wasn't she?" Rias asked to which Sona nodded.

"Most likely. Regardless, we can't really stop her from approaching Ace-kun now since we don't really have any definitive contract right now. Besides, you heard him, if there is anything you need help with you just need an appropriate payment and he would take it. For my part, I would like him in my peerage, but if he can't join I won't fight it. I am not really sure he would fit at any rate." Sona said with a slight sigh.

As for Rias, she just fumed in anger, not only were the talks about her engagement being pushed to happen sooner, but now she was being spied upon and her potential peerage members were being stolen.

No, she would not allow it! She would do something, ANYTHING, to stop this! She won't just let others decide her future for her!

She left the room where the meeting had been held, returning to where the rest of the peerage was at.

Koneko, on the side, was munching from a bag of cookies, her cheeks full similar to that of a squirrel. Kiba was sitting in a comfy armchair, he was playing a simple game of Candy Crush to pass the time, enjoying the experience. And as for Akeno, she was sitting at Rias's table. As a Queen Akeno decided to take this time where Rias was occupied to check for any new requests from the many contractors they had across town to organize the work for the night.

"So, how did it go Buchou?" Akeno questioned, raising her eyes from the documents and wondering if the guy who defeated her would be joining or not. Personally, she hoped he did join as that would mean someone else strong enough to help Rias get out of that unpleasant marriage contract.

Riser was just that bad a partner, and Akeno would know. The man had multiple times asked Rias to fill up her peerage with more girls as they would all be a good wedding gift from Rias to Riser that he could break them into proper concubines for his greatness during their honeymoon tour through the strip clubs in Vegas. He would also speak of how smart Rias's family was by not trusting a silly little girl like her and how, instead of trying to avoid the inevitable, she could do like her parents and let the Gremory house for him to manage as the next Gremory family head since the Glorious Riser would lead them to new heights.

Rias, looking at Akeno, said.

"... Not too good, but not too bad. If we want him to join we will need to do some things." Turning to Kiba Rias continued. "Yuto, return to the Gremory State. We already have a lot of information about Riser and his peerage, but I need you to go back and find out every scrap of information you can get your hands on. Ace-kun said he would join under the requirement that we give him all the information possible about our enemy first and foremost. His other requirement was to see us in action as to measure our capabilities as well, with those two he intends to analyze the information available about both sides to see if joining us is the best decision or not."

Koneko frowned and spoke up.

"Sempai is afraid of fire chicken?"

Hearing the term 'fire chicken' was enough to alleviate Rias's mood as she answered.

"I wouldn't say that. It is more likely that he doesn't want to join a lost cause... and I don't blame him. If Hyoudou-kun joins and we lose then I would marry Riser and Riser would have influence over him just as he would over us all. Him being cautious makes sense."

As Rias said this the others nodded their heads, all three knowing how unpleasant such a thing would be.

"Well, if Kiba-kun is going to the Underworld to see to the information, what will the rest of us do in the meanwhile?" Akeno asked to which Rias's expression turned solemn.

"... Ravel and Sona have their eyes on him, but I don't intend for them to steal him away. Koneko and you have to go train. I... I will figure something out. No matter what, I will get what I want." Rias said with determination, she would do all she could to get the result she wanted.

She would not be just another of Riser's bitches! Whatever it takes.

///---///

AN:

So, just posted to show that no, I am not dead. I am still writing, just that I am taking time to create a good stash of chapters before starting to post it. Thanks for reading, please tell me your thoughts and don't forget to follow and favorite.