RD 4 Story Thus Far & Ch 1

Story Thus Far

Bran had grown considerably since he went back in time to create a new and better timeline for humanity.

He was a minor enough ripple that the differences he was causing in this time were small in the grand scheme of things. However, his choices and the small changes had finally caught up to him with his most recent venture into the vault. 

But there were others with more knowledge than Bran would have expected. Somebody had made the strange map he had found in the Free Player Alliance market. That map alone spoke of someone with significant knowledge of the goings-on around the world, or the future. And somebody had given Leonardo da Vinci the letter to help him crack the vault early. Whether they were the one person or two had yet to be seen.

Bran had opened that vault, working to kill off the demons inside that threatened to bolster the demon army, and found himself saving some of the Heroes of the First Demon War.

Once again, he tried to shift the odds in humanities favor, but he had experienced more than one surprise inside. Others were becoming aware of him, and his knowledge of the future was starting to deviate from the present timeline enough that he would soon be playing out a very different series of events.

Over the next 500 years, Bran would get his chance to set humanity on a path to survive multiple demon onslaughts. He would continue to use his past life's knowledge to strengthen not only himself but other key organizations of humanity. He would try to be where the world needed him most at any point in time. 

He was but a single person. The apocalypse was still several days away, and Bran had been rapidly trying to figure out his next steps.

Chapter 1

I sat at the desk, scribbling in my notebook, writing down everything that I anticipated happening and all the people I could employ, use, and shift around to try and stop the worst from coming. It was essentially a guidebook to the first year of the demon war.

"Whatcha doin'?" Simone asked from the bed where she was covered in nothing more than a thin sheet and a curtain of her golden hair. Her head was propped up and her feet were kicking lazily behind her. The only part of her that was actually covered was her rear end. 

"I'm trying to organize my thoughts. We've been over this. I need something to offer Hercules and Zeus before they throw an absolute fit." I grumbled.

"I mean, with our buffs, can't you just, I don't know, go full Bran mode and teach them not to mess with you?" Simone rolled onto her back and ran a hand down her long legs, looking at me upside down with the kind of look that would have most men jumping up from their seat and running over.

Unfortunately, it seemed I was going to have to be an idiot today. 

"This is important." I tapped at the notebook with the pen. 

Simone groaned and played with her hair until it fell off the edge of the bed, spilling out onto the floor as she used an illusion to make it longer. Meanwhile, she batted her lashes at me. 

"There are other things that are important too, Bran." She purred in her sexiest voice.

The door to my room, which Simone told me was a suite, opened up. Simone had apparently designed it to have a number of rooms attached to mine. Most of them were empty, I didn’t know why she had included so many.

"Am I interrupting something?" Gloria asked, fully dressed for the day, unlike Simone. 

"Unfortunately not." Simone rolled to her knees and stepped out of bed fully clothed, or at least as clothed as she was going to be in her scantily clad saintess attire. 

Gloria looked her up and down. "Are you nude under that?" she asked. 

Simone gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know. If you want to find out, you'll have to try and take it off." She winked at the mob princess who only shrugged and looked away, completely uninterested in the fairer sex. 

"Bran, are you still working on that?" Gloria asked. 

"Yes, I'm still working on it. There’s a lot to think about up here." I tapped at my temple with the pen before hunching back over the desk. 

Everything from chairs to tables felt a bit smaller ever since my body had gotten bigger with my titan physique.

I had apparently added on another two inches of height, as well as a significant amount of density to my body. My hands were also noticeably bigger, or perhaps things just felt smaller, since everything was so damn fragile. I really needed more items that were made of system grade materials.

"Well, Merlin's here.” Gloria told me. “So you need to finish that up.”

"I'm still working on it.” I grumbled again, staring at the piece of paper and willing it to form into some logical plan. There was supposed to be more time to figure everything out.

“Well, it’s time to go. Once Circe shows up, the gang is back together.” Gloria jerked her head to the side.

I glanced up at the clock and cursed, slapping the notebook closed and throwing it into my spatial ring, only to accidentally crush the pen in my haste. "Well, I guess that means we need to get going. We won't be back here until after the Hellgates open up." I glanced at the two of them and pulled out a rag to wipe my hands off with. "Are your people prepared?" 

"The Nestor clan is all ready." Gloria took a confident stance with her fist pushed against her hips. "There's a small stockpile of resources ready and waiting for my father when he becomes initiated. He listened to your advice over dinner the other night. I think he's taking it to heart." 

"Good," I said quickly. "Your father always regretted his choice in the last life. I hope this time he lives without regrets and can lead everyone to a better future. Is the fortress done?"

The scope of the initial plans are well past completion," she hesitated, "but the expanded plans are still in progress. We're running out of time."

"I'm well aware," I said, earning a glare from her. Largely I had left this project to them, I wasn’t much of a builder. More of a leader and mostly a wanderer. I knew that wasn’t going to last, but I wasn’t about to manage something of this scale.

"At least all of the raw materials are in the country, and we're working to get our hands on them and rush them here as quickly as possible. If we have the materials, we can still do the work after the hell gates open." She told me.

I nodded. "And you have a little buffer there too. It'll take a few weeks before the shipping lanes completely shut down. But a few weeks is all that we will have, then you are completely out of luck."

"We have Merlin, if we need it," Simone jumped into the discussion. "And besides, I sent a couple of the more capable Mul Branova out into the country with a pocket full of spatial rings." Simone smiled. "They'll make sure to pick up as many resources as they can before returning. The Citadel of Blood will be well-stocked." She gave me a giant grin.

I closed my eyes, pressing a hand to my forehead. "I'm fairly certain we had a discussion on not calling it the Citadel of Blood."

"Did we?" Simone glanced at Gloria, who also shrugged.

"With hundreds of Mul Branova who could right now take on even the strongest military forces in the world calling it the Citadel of Blood, I'm pretty sure it's going to stick, Bran." The mob princess wasn’t helping.

I made a face, but knew when to pick my battles. I moved past both of them out into the central area of the suite where Merlin was waiting, talking happily with Nyx.

She turned back to me before tossing me several spatial rings of her own.

I snatched them out of the air and glanced at them for a second before my eyes popped open with what was inside. "You did well. This is all legit, correct? You didn't steal this?" I eyed her.

The ancient woman snorted. "No, I did not steal that. I am wealthy beyond belief and apparently that digital wealth is about to completely disappear because I cannot liquidate it fast enough. So, why not use it?" She held up two other spatial rings in her other hand. "Besides, I only spent a pittance on yours. I went down to Chile, where apparently there is a massive dump of clothes just rotting away in the Andes. Seems like a win-win situation to make that all disappear."

"Clothes?" Simone asked, moving faster than normal as she snatched the rings out of my hands and began to look through them. "Oh my," she gasped.

"They're just cheap shit," Gloria huffed. Her outfit no doubt cost an exorbitant amount.

"Some of us can make do without the finer things," Simone said. "Besides, I think in a year people will just be happy that there's clothes that aren't threadbare, even if they do wear out faster."

While we were all talking, Nyx fidgeted nervously. "Are you sure it's going to be okay to go back to the Heros Clan?"

I could only shrug at her question. "Hercules and Zeus might give me some trouble. I think Persephone is manageable. And with this," the notebook popped back out into my hand, "my hope is that I can convince Zeus and Hercules to forgive me at least this once."

Merlin eyed the book. "And what is in there that's so valuable?"

"Knowledge about the future," I said. "As much as I could remember about the next year." As I finished, the notebook disappeared again. "And if they give us trouble, yes, Simone, I might go all Bran on them and make them regret trying to go against me, even if I did technically mess up a little. That the Vault would warp time was completely out of my expectations. As far as I knew time manipulation was incredibly rare; there had been no record of that in my past life.”

My mind began to wander, once again trying to figure out how that change had come into play. While I’d changed the outcome of the vault, I felt like the time difference would have been noticed and mentioned before.

"Have you all been waiting for me?" Circe asked, stepping into my room. She looked every bit a woman from an ancient Greek myth, with soft blue hair and piercing red eyes. An archmage specializing in wind, she was an archmage and one of the leaders of the Heros Clan. She had invested heavily in her stats over her long life. Even with what I had gained from the vault, I was not yet her equal. 

Merlin cast a sharp glance in Circe’s direction before ignoring her. The two had a history, though I had yet to learn any of the details.

"Yep, we're ready," I said. "I have my peace offerings for Hercules and Zeus, and then I'll awaken as many Heros bloodlines as I can."

Circe watched me closely. "I don't think you understand how upset they are. It's not just that you didn't awaken several rounds of Heros Clan initiates. The problem is that you embarrassed them. Those who know are concerned about the whole clan's legacy because they can't control you.”

I held back a groan at old men and their need to control everything. Then again, I was once an old man and I went back in time to change everything to the way I wanted it.

Simone spoke up. “If anyone thinks they're going to control my Bran, they're going to get an incredibly rude awakening."

Circe just shrugged. "Not my words, just the present truth. So don't bother getting upset at me for saying it out loud." She shifted her focus back to me. "But if it makes a difference, I'm on your side, Bran, and I think Persephone will be too. I've managed to talk to her and explain the situation. She'll do her best to talk to the other two. Perhaps if they can be made to understand it all outside of a heated moment, then everything will be easier."

"I like easier," Nyx said and finally stopped fidgeting.

"We all do, Nyx. But nothing's going to be easy, not for a short while. We're going to the Heros Clan, and then we'll be taking a plane from there up to Denmark." I reminded her. “Hopefully the Heros Clan is the easy part.”

"Right," Simone said, a smile on her lips. "That thing that you won’t say much about but means we have to go to Denmark for when the hell gates open up."

"And here I thought you didn't understand," I smirked at her. "Sounds like you know the plan just fine."

"Oh, I understand the plan. The question has always been, why?" Simone asked, never one to shy away from pushing for answers.

"Because that particular hell gate opens up in a very densely populated city. The amount of life lost in that instance is horrific. And what the demons do to those that survive is not pretty. If we're going to make the biggest impact on the first wave, that's where we do it to get Europe off on a better foot. Right in the middle of a high-density European city, TV and news will still operate for at least a couple of weeks. Perhaps we can get a message out and get the whole world to understand and rally."

Simone only had a strange smile on her face as she wagged her finger back and forth. "There's something you're not telling us, or perhaps someone," she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Your imagination's getting the better of you," I stared her down. 

But that look never got to Simone who simply clicked her tongue in response. "It's just very unlike you, Bran. Going public in a big city? I think you're protecting someone."

"And if I am?" I asked with a sigh. Simone's intuition ability was scarily powerful.

"Well then, I want to meet her. Was she someone from your past life?" Simone asked.

I turned back to Merlin, knowing I could use her to help us move forward. "Do you want to listen to this, or should we get going?"