Chapter 004: Beatdown

Author: WolfSpatial

Co-Author: Lucifer

[When the wind doth blow, to and fro, you must get your shit together, and fuck up them hoes.]

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{CYRUS DRAKON}

It was maybe six-thirty in the morning when we got to the church, having stopped on the way for some coffee as Fischer was starting to get a little tired. It was fair, he had been up for almost two days at this point.

I had told him that I could take care of it myself, but he insisted on being here to capture Mittelt. I figured he'd probably sleep on his way to Romania anyway, so I didn't push the subject.

We stopped next to Yuuji as he sat on a bench reading a book titled 'The Ranger's Apprentice' with a small paper cup in his left hand. Whatever was in the cup smelled almost like bland coffee with something I couldn't place mixed in.

He downed the rest of it and placed a bookmark between the pages before closing his book and setting it on his lap. He looked up at us, then at the girl beside me, and nodded to her, "Is this that Fallen Angel that you were going after, Sir?"

It came as something of a surprise to me that he didn't talk to Fischer with the same reverence that the rest of his Retinue had. It was like he was just another person who was higher on the food chain.

Seeing as Fischer didn't say anything about it, I kept my mouth shut. We had come to an unspoken agreement to leave our respective Retinue's discipline to the owner of said Retinue.

Regardless, Fischer nodded, "Yes, her name is Amelia now. She's a member of Drakon's Retinue."

"I understand," He stood and slipped his book into his back pocket, "Our target has not shown up yet."

"We aren't here for that," Interjecting, I glanced toward a window of the church where a set of yellow eyes watched us curiously.

"Kalawarner," Seeming to sense my question before I even asked, Amelia spoke up. She looked up at me, almost pleading for praise.

She kind of looked like a child from where I was standing, being more than a foot taller than her increased that line of thinking to its limit. I set my hand on her head and ruffled her hair slightly, getting a beaming smile in response.

There was absolutely no trace of the sadistic, arrogant, petty bitch that she used to be. In fact, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I'd never believe it.

"Kalawarner is one of the four – now three – Fallen Angels that are going after Asia's Sacred Gear." Fischer turned to face the church, folding his arms in front of his frail chest, "I won't be of much help here, but I can tell you what I know about each of them. After that, I want you to bring Mittelt to me if you can."

"Let's get one thing straight," Removing my hand from Amelia's head, I looked over at Fischer. The girl pouted but didn't voice her disappointment, "I don't work for you, I work with you. I understand that you're more strategically minded than me, but you're not in charge."

"Sure," Fischer nodded, showing that he understood our positions, "I know you're my partner, Drakon. Don't worry about that. However, we can't solve every problem by hitting it, so I'll take charge when I need to. There are many beings in this world that can destroy both our bodies in an instant."

Clicking my tongue, I stepped out into the street and began toward the church. Fischer had no business telling me how to beat the daylights out of a bunch of pansy Fallen Angels that probably couldn't even compare to my left nut.

However, he was right about one thing; he wouldn't be of help here. He was weak and couldn't fight the pizza guy even with a handicap.

But, I digress. Amelia came up next to me as I reached the bottom of the stone steps that led up to the dark wooden double door of the church. She put a hand against it and closed her eyes briefly, a shaky breath coming from her mouth, "I know He's dead, but I can still feel traces of Him here."

"Are you okay?" Setting a hand on her shoulder, she flinched and opened her eyes. A single tear fell and she pushed open both doors without a word.

"I'm okay, Master, because you won't leave me as He did." She smiled and turned her head to look at me, "Will you?"

"I won't leave, Amelia." Looking past her into the barely lit church, I found it bland with two columns of pews that stretched from about eight feet in front of the door to about ten feet from the podium in the middle of the far side.

I figured the entire room was maybe sixty-five or seventy feet long and about three-fourths that wide. Sitting in the pews were men and women dressed in white robes, praying to their God that he would… do something, probably.

There was a lit candelabra on the podium which held three burning candles made of white wax. I took in a deep breath, finding almost every single person in the church to be Human except for a few.

Clearing my throat, I caught the attention of the people and began walking forward to the podium. Amelia seemed to understand without me saying anything, turning and closing the double doors so none could escape.

The clergy, if they could be considered that, went back to their prayers except for two. They stood and came forward, an older-looking man with greying hair and a young man who filled some concerning stereotypes.

"How can we help you, child?" The old man spoke with a kind smile, somehow ignoring Amelia as she sat in the pews at the end of the hall. He seemed more worried about my stature than anything else, probably mistaking me for a martial artist or bodybuilder.

"I'm here about an infestation," His brow furrowed at my words, looking to his companion – probably in more ways than one – and then back to me, "I heard a bunch of ants moved in, so I came to take care of the problem."

"I don't think we reported anything like that," He chuckled lightheartedly, "I think we would have noticed a bunch of bugs, young man."

"I doubt it," Turning toward the podium, I grabbed the candelabra and put out the flames one at a time, "Bugs don't often notice themselves."

"I'm sorry?" The younger clergy stepped forward, "You can't touch that, it's a-"

He was cut off by a glare, my strength washing over him and the others in the room. Holding the candelabra by its base, I turned quickly and brought it into unholy matrimony with his neck. Unfortunately, the candle wasn't sharp enough to give him the death I wanted.

On the plus side, watching everything above his shoulders and below his jawline turn to pink mist wasn't the worst experience. However, he splashed onto my face and caked my shirt in his blood and flesh. It was truly inconsiderate of him.

The eyes of the older clergyman widened in fear and shock, not registering that my hand had closed around his neck and lifted him from the ground. When he did register that fact, he clutched my wrist as his face turned red and then purple.

It had become something of a sad truth that I liked watching these weaker beings struggle against me since coming to this world, but something within told me that it wasn't necessarily wrong to think that way. It felt that they were lucky to die at the hands of a Dragon as great as myself, to even be in my presence for a glimpse of their lives.

Shaking those thoughts from my head, I took in a deep breath and felt power well up in my lungs. I could see the glow emanating from my chest and throat in the reflection of the clergy's dying eyes, pulling him closer as I released the blast of Necromantic Energy into his face and watched as his life force shriveled away and he became a Human raisin.

Tossing the clergyman to the side, I found the others petrified in their seats. It would've been nice to be able to kill them all without having to do much, but I could feel my flare of power receding back to me even as I stepped up to the next one.

I slammed my right fist forward, the chest of the middle-aged man cracking and giving way as my hand came out of his back. His blood hit the ground as the others scrambled, pulling weapons from their clothes that no holy persons should be wielding.

A revolver came up to my head from one of the clergy to my right, the hammer smacking down as a deafening crack sent my head to the left. The sting of the white energy against my temple caused me to groan, removing my hand from the man I had impaled.

"You really know how to push my buttons," Covering my hand in the Ki I had gotten from Sebas Tian's Template, I swiped it to my right and severed the person who shot me in half. They screamed, causing me to grab their mouth and throw the upper half of their body into the crowd that had begun to form between me and the exit – not that I had any thoughts of leaving.

Closing my eyes, I reached for the aura of the dead clergy around me and began to stitch it together. My type of necromancy wasn't the typical summoning bullshit where I just pointed and a skeleton popped up.

I was unlucky, my type of necromancy could be boiled down to the manipulation of negative energy. I could reach out and touch the negative energy around corpses and bind it to me, giving the corpses life again and allowing me to control them to an extent. However, that, unfortunately, meant I couldn't use corpses that were in multiple pieces unless I took the time to bind their pieces together.

I didn't have any plans to do so. That left me with two viable corpses for revival, both of which seemed to have a seizure at the same time before getting to their feet and growling at the eighty or so clergy who faced me.

I opened my eyes to see a bit too much power leaking from the zombies, their bodies already beginning to fall apart even as I retracted what I could and sent them forward. The clergy found themselves visibly confused as their comrades attacked them, though they quickly adapted and struck down my zombies after they had already infected others with my power.

I wasn't a fan of prolonged conflict unless I was against a strong opponent, it just felt weird to waste power on weaklings. As such, I overloaded the power in those that my zombies had infected and the zombies themselves. The purple glow began to get brighter as I stuck a barrier around Amelia so she wasn't overwhelmed by the negative power.

As the energy reached its climax, I let out a breath. Pure purple light filled the church, negative energy rushing around and trying to find an outlet. Spreading my arms, I took as deep a breath as possible and absorbed the energy, feeling the heat in my lungs and stomach and closing my eyes to relish the feeling.

The sounds of heavy breathing brought me from my reverie, my eyes snapping to a man who was toward the back of the group when the blast was set off. He was equipped with a sword and shield made of light, something that protected him for the most part.

There were still lines of purple energy pulsing under the skin of his left arm, crawling slowly through his body like an infection. Stepping past the glowing ashes that used to be his friends, I grabbed the edge of his shield and pushed it down. He watched, unable to act, as his shield became embedded into the stone ground and I opened my mouth, "What kind of weapons are these?"

He took in a shaky breath, seeming to be using all of his power to suppress the negative energy. Seeing as he wasn't going to respond to me, I coated my hand in negative energy and stuck two fingers into his chest. He began to foam at the mouth, his eyes rolling into his skull as wisps of white fled from him and into the air.

I watched them dissipate some three feet from him, and then the light of his sword and shield flickered and vanished. Humming to myself, I grabbed the equipment. Sticking the sword hilt in my pocket and tucking the shield's grip into my belt line, I lowered the barrier around Amelia and stood up as the last of the clergy turned to ash.

Amelia walked over to me, tiptoeing around the piles and stopping when she was directly in front of me, "How did you do that, Master!? You were like blergh and they went ahhhh and then there was purple stuff all around and you sucked it up!"

"I am positive I did not go blergh." Despite that I smiled and handed her the sword and shield, "Can you use these? And, can you tell me how they work?"

"I can," She took them, the sword in her left hand and the shield in her right, "Just put a bit of holy power into them and they project it. Come to think of it, your power is like the antithesis of holy power, just as holy power is the antithesis of demonic power. What is it?"

"Negative energy. It's a fairly powerful type of energy that powers my type of necromancy." The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, causing me to grab Amelia and twist to the side just as a pink spear of light flew past us. It caught the back of my right hand, leaving a thin cut as it then penetrated the ground.

Looking over, I found three Fallen Angels glaring at Amelia and me. The one in the center was a smaller girl with blonde hair who held her hand outstretched, "You betrayed us, Raynare! How could you side with… with whatever he is!?"

"Master showed me my wrongs!" Amelia's wings sprung from her back, shocking the trio as her sword and shield came to life. They proved bigger than the clergy's had been, instead of a buckler and gladius Amelia had a war-door shield and a longsword.

"How have you gotten your grace back!?!" The male in the trench coat and bowler hat screamed, his black wings trembling behind him. The blue light spear in his hand seemed to grow weaker; if just a bit.

"My new Master saved me." Amelia turned her nose up, a small hmph coming out of her nostrils as if to say they should be groveling at my feet, "He gave me back everything that Azazel had taken, then he gifted me a new name and shot at life."

"Before we begin," I cracked my knuckles with a small grin on my face, "Which one of you is Mittelt?"

"Th-that's me…" The smaller girl in the front took a step back, bringing her hands closer to her chest, "Wh-why?"

"I have a friend who wants you… uh, in one piece." Lunging forward, I reached for the blonde; only to be blocked by the yellow-eyed girl that had stood silently this whole time. Her golden spear clapped against my wrist, causing me to just barely miss Mittelt's throat and instead push her.

"Stay out of this. Okay, Amelia?" I groaned in annoyance, pulling my hand back as the male thrusted his spear forward and clipped my cheek. The thin scratch began to leak blood dark enough it could have been black, the Fallen Angels frowning.

"What are you?" Mittelt summoned her pink spear again, brandishing it with her comrades.

Wiping my hand over my cut cheek, the skin closed itself back together with a dull white glow. I had to admit that Sebas' skills were very useful, allowing me to heal myself and others at the expense of Ki. The yellow-eyed girl – who was probably the Kalawarner that Amelia had mentioned before – narrowed her gaze and charged me.

Taking a deep breath, I lowered my stance and called on Sebas' martial arts skills. I flattened my hand and dipped to the side suddenly as Kalawarner came closer, slamming my palm into her gut. At the same moment, I activated Sebas' Percussion Aerodynamics skill, extra kinetic energy transferring into her body and sending her flying through the air. She hit the wall above her teammates, her spear dissipating as she slumped into unconsciousness.

Mittelt looked at her and then at me, her eyes widening and her teeth grinding together, "You… bastard!"

"Pretty girls shouldn't use such harsh language," It seemed that some of Sebas' temperament came with his skills, causing me to internally shrug. I didn't mind the occasional gentleman's remark as long as it didn't hold me back.

Mittelt let out an audible groan, "Dohnaseek, we'll go together."

Leave it to the Fallen Angel to put a name to a face. Dohnaseek nodded and the duo came at me together, Mittelt stabbing her spear first.

"I'm sorry for this, Fischer." My lament caused confusion to dawn on Mittelt's face as I slipped past her and slammed Dohnaseek's head into the stone, his face becoming unrecognizable. She lept away from me, only to be caught unaware when I copied her move and made a spear of negative energy. Throwing it forward, the spear collided with her right shoulder and amputated her arm and wing.

She screamed, holding her bloody stump and looking at me in rage and fear. She fell to her knees, looking at the bloody bodies of her allies, "Please, spare me. I'll do anything! Do you need a woman? I can serve you better than that bitch Raynare ever-"

She was cut off by the door to the church opening.

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{DOMINIK FISCHER}

I opened the door of the church to find piles of ash in the center of the room, Kalawarner in the wall above the podium, Dohnaseek face down in the stone, and Mittelt begging for her life on her knees.

Turning away from the mess of blood and former Humans, I emptied my stomach onto the tiled floor. Yuuji came up behind me and patted my back, "You get used to it, Sir."

"Yeah," Wiping my mouth, I stood up straight and kept my gaze away from the aftermath of Drakon's playdate. Then I raised my voice, "Keep her alive, please!"

"I'm not an idiot," Drakon's voice came from next to me, though I wasn't sure when he got there. I glanced at him to find Mittelt being held by the scruff of her neck, her spirit completely broken. It seemed he had beaten her a bit more even after her plea for life.

He tossed her in front of me, the cute girl whom I had wanted nowhere to be seen. Both of her eyes were blackened, she was bleeding from every orifice and was missing multiple teeth. I choked back more bile and tapped her with my foot, a groan coming from her lips.

At least he left her alive, but I'd need a seriously powerful healer to fix her. It was a good thing that I planned to go get Valerie, or I'd be lecturing Drakon more than he ever did Issei.

"I'll fix her after you've captured her," He said before walking over to Dohnaseek and taking a bite out of his right forearm. I doubted he knew how our Retinues got our powers, but he seemed to sense what I was going to ask, "Did you not know I could heal? I can't regenerate limbs, heal diseases, or detoxify poisons, but I can get her stable without much effort."

"Then why did you… No, never mind, I don't care." Sighing, I opened a portal to the front lawn of the manor and had Yuuji carry Mittelt over after pulling a collar with a small citrine gem attached to it from my Company app and clasping it around her neck.

"Why'd you want that one?" Dragging his two new Retinue members by the collars of their clothes, Drakon stepped closer. How such a large man could be so quiet completely eluded me, but maybe that's where his butler got it from.

"She's cute; my type." He gave me a disgusted expression, looking at me like I was Human trash, "That's not what I mean… I'm not into underage girls… I just like the body type!"

He hummed and tossed his Fallen Angels into the portal, looking over his shoulder at Amelia who was putting away her new weapons. She noticed him looking at her and perked up visibly, skipping over and grabbing onto his left arm, "Where to now, Master? Are we gonna go find Freed?"

"Who?" Drakon furrowed his brow, looking to me for an answer.

"Freed is an exorcist, I thought he was here so I didn't bother to tell you about him." Sighing, I focused on the various weapons strewn about the ashes of Drakon's victims, "Did you fight a dirty-mouthed exorcist with white hair? He would have had a sword and pistol."

"There was one person with a pistol, but I think they had black hair." He scratched his chin, seeming to go over the situation in his mind, "Yeah, the only one with white hair was an old man that I drained."

"Drained?" I asked, "In which way?"

"His life force," He said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Right," I nodded, "How?"

I didn't recall him having any abilities like that. Then again, I didn't know he could heal either. It made me wonder what else I just didn't know about his power set. Could he secretly turn into a capybara by chance?

I'd need to ask him for a detailed explanation of his powers later, not that he'd give them to me without some fuss. He clearly didn't like me telling him what to do, given his outburst earlier, so I doubted me trying to pry into his abilities would go over well.

"My negative energy… from my necromantic Dragon Scale perk…" He gave me a doubting look, separating himself from Amelia, "Did you not listen to me when I explained the first time?"

"I did," Folding my arms in front of my chest, I sighed, "I guess I just didn't realize the scope of your power."

Drakon rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed – by me, the situation, or both, I wasn't sure. I could wager that it was both, and I'd probably win the bet, but I would need to satiate him at some point if I wanted to keep a strong ally.

He pushed Amelia through the portal despite her protests and looked over at the piles of ash that he had left behind along with the weapons that dotted the ground. Without a word, the Dragon stepped forward and began collecting the light-powered weapons, confusing me slightly. In the show and book, when an exorcist died they mostly just left the corpse there.

I figured the Grigori or the Vatican sent someone to clean up the mess and collect the weapons, but I wasn't entirely sure. Now – with the connections to both groups severed – only we could clean up the mess.

The church was abandoned, for sure, and had been for a long time, but with exorcists coming and going it might've looked to others like the church was populated again. If they came to investigate or join the religion, we certainly didn't want them finding a stash of weapons and piles of ash.

Along with that, when we brought Asia here in the future, we wouldn't want her to be uncomfortable or discontent with the place. Granted, we'd need to fix up the pieces of the building that Drakon had broken, but I'd leave that to him. It was he who caused it after all.

But, I digress. Drakon stuck most of the weapons into his inventory, handing me a holy revolver, "I'm not sure if you can use this, but I guess it's better than being useless."

With that and a chuff at my expense, he walked through the portal to my island. I waited for a second, watching as the ash of the former Humans began to spread with a strong breeze that came through the door. Taking a look at the revolver that Drakon had handed me, I stuck it in the back of my waistband and sighed, "This guy is just problem after problem."

"At least they're not big problems," I chuckled to myself and followed the others into the portal, closing it behind me.

Dohnaseek and Kalawarner were nowhere to be found, but Mittelt was set on the couch with her eyes barely open. She noticed me and turned her head away, looking toward the backrest.

Drakon was on his knees in front of her, a soft white glow coming from my hands as they hovered over her body. He probably couldn't regenerate her lost arm or wing, but he could close her other wounds and, at least, stop her stumps from bleeding her to death.

Luckily, Valerie would be able to heal her. Speaking of Valerie, "I need to leave soon, Drakon."

"Okay," He responded but gave no indication that he heard me otherwise. I would need to mend our working relationship when I got back, or things could get ugly if he found someone he felt like backing more.

Looking to my right, I almost jumped out of my skin as Sebastian appeared with three packed suitcases that were almost two-thirds my size. He gave a partial bow and explained, "I have taken the liberty of packing luggage for you, Miss Yuu, and Miss Blue-Eyes for your time in Romania."

"It's not a vacation," I chided, a small smile on my face.

"Nor did I think it was," The first suitcase he opened was lined with boxes of ammunition and bladed weapons wherever he could stuff them. The second had guns and more blades, even a disassembled rifle that looked about the same size as Yuu herself. The third had body armor and two sets of tactical gear as well as some protein bars. Sebastian gave his own smile, "I'm not a fan of these things myself, but they can be handy in a pinch."

Looking at the gear, I found the first set to be in my size and the second to be — I assumed — in Blue-Eyes size. Giving Sebastian a strange look, I put them back into the case and closed all three, "How did you know our sizes?"

"I am simply one hell of a butler," He bowed, taking the suitcases outside without instruction.

"Are you going to sell me?" Mittelt suddenly asked, drawing my attention, "Raynare said that you both are slave traders. So, are you going to sell me?"

She was almost completely healed when I walked over and stood by her head, staring down at her. Drakon stood up and walked away, headed toward the theater room in the basement. I figured he was probably going to tell Issei that he was free to go.

Regardless, I sat on the coffee table and leaned forward, my eyes searching Mittelt's body for any lingering damage. My gaze landed on her arm and she visibly shuddered when she noticed, "No. I don't plan to sell you, I plan to keep you around for a while."

"Why?" Her cocky, brazen, arrogant self was gone. Something about Drakon's treatment of these Fallen Angels wiped any notion of their superiority from their minds, not that I was complaining. "You have that behemoth of a man working for you, what could you possibly need from me."

"Need? Nothing." I leaned back, sitting up straight, and patted my hands on my knees, "I want you, and that's enough for my partner to spare you the fate of your comrades. You'll serve me from now on, following my every command and bending to my every whim."

"You can't-" She was cut off by the sound of crashing coming from below us, my brow knitting together as I wondered what Issei could have possibly done this time.

Tiny footsteps caught my attention as Yuu threw herself at me from behind, "Big Brother Issei is being hurt again."

"What'd he do?" Patting Yuu's head, I brought her to sit on my lap. She laid her head back against my chest and looked up at me with sparkling eyes.

"He showed me grown women!" She beamed, my face losing its composure as the urge to join Drakon in his beating of the boy surfaced, "Master?"

"Yes, Yuu?" My face twitched as I forced a smile, looking down at my adorable Yuu-Boat.

"Why did they do that with the purple thing?" She was too innocent for this! Damn you, Issei! Stop corrupting my Yuu! …that's my job…

"Mittelt," I spoke grimly, catching the Fallen Angel's attention. I hadn't yet captured her completely, but it was only a matter of time so I wasn't really worried about her, "Please excuse me for a moment."

"Uh," Mittelt blinked, confusion on her face as I laid Yuu atop her, "W-why?"

Starting toward the theater room, I paused, "I need to go slay a Dragon."