FoJ: Chapter 9

“We’ve been attacked.”

“By who?” Magnus was the first to interject.

“I got no damned idea.” Renato growled. “They looked human, but they hid their features with non-descript masks and escaped the moment they knew I was close.”

Alex could feel the anger taper off the werewolf boss like waves, and could see Aiko trembling from the strain.

He put a hand over the woman’s shoulders, unconsciously fighting off Renato’s aura with a slight affectation of his will.

It wasn’t quite Conqueror’s but it was enough to take the weight off her shoulders, and for Renato to notice and reign himself, sending an apologetic look toward her.

He could sight the exorcist, Father Joey, giving him an interested look, but then he quickly turned back to Renato and got back into focus.

“Our church shall accommodate all your injured, shall you accept this offer, Don Renato.” He says. “It seems that we are faced with a threat that we must face together once again.”

Magnus quickly took out a blocky phone and dialed a number.

“Hey, boss? There’s a new situation here.” He says. “Yes, someone attacked the Romulus clan, yes, I think it was an ambush?” He looks to the don for confirmation, and continues once he receives a nod. “Yeah, they ambushed them. Hit their low ranks while the don was away and escaped once he got close.”

His speech is interrupted as a magical circle appears at the door, it resembled one of the few he saw in the DxD anime of a devils teleportation, and it had a crest that vaguely resembled a man atop a one-humped camel.

Matias Paimon came through the portal with a crass expression, wearing the same outfit he did in the picture, except the cane seemed to be half as large as it was shown.

The man wiped some blood off the side of his coat.

“Sorry, I had a pest problem.” His voice was smooth as honey, and had quite an aristocratic flair to it.

He then notices the state of Renato’s subordinates, and lets out a sardonic chuckle.

“This does remind me of a couple of months ago.” He says. “Disguised men? Attacked your subordinates while you were preoccupied?” He asks the werewolf head, who simply lights up a cigar and nods in assent.

“It seems the pest problem has grown beyond my little garden, then.” He then looks Magnus and his phone. “Please relay to your higher ups, before I left, I heard some commotion from other parts of Lower Manhattan, the attacks seem geographically targeted.”

Magnus nods, and puts the phone back to his side. “I’m back, they attacked Mr. Paimon. Yeah, he’s here. Same MO, yeah.” His phone then rings again, he pulls it back and stares at the recipient, then puts it back to his ear. “I’ve got a call from Ms. Syraleth, I will call you when I call.”

He then switches calls.

“Ms. Syraleth, what’s the situation?” He says. “… Alright, I’ll change their profile accordingly. Yes, everyone is here, apart from the Karnsteins.” He then turns and looks at Alex surprisingly. “Yes? Yeah, he’s here. Ok, I’ll see you in a minute.”

Magnus puts down the phone and turns to the others.

“Syraleth says they targeted the ward stone.”

“That’s… stupid, you need to be ultimate class to even get close to touching it, some rabble won’t even be able to think about it!” Thellsa exclaims.

“It was a distraction, a small one, but while a group sacrificed themselves to its defenses, another almost managed to sneak in and sabotage the sensors.” Magnus explains. “Thankfully, Ms. Syrathell was there for maintenance and got them before they could. Naturally, she also checked their readings, curious about what they were trying to hide.”

He turns to Thellsa. “She says to tell the young man behind you, Alex, was it?” Alex nods. “She told me to tell you that she noticed a couple of high-class signatures chasing another one.” He explains. “And that once she used clairvoyance on the scene, she saw an amazonian woman using a spear.”

Alex goes alert, straightening his back from wariness.

“Where?!”

Magnus startles for a second. “In the vicinity of Central Park, but I don’t see how tha-“

But Alex ceased to listen, amazonian woman with a spear? That’s clearly Cyrus’ mother; he owes it to the boy to reunite them.

One moment he stood there, the second he already went through the wall, jumping diagonally until he reached the sky.

“Fuck you, Alex!” Thellsa’s voice echoes. “Just use the fucking door!”

--*

The Lucky Lounge was in Midtown Manhattan, the distance between the bar and Central Park is roughly 1.8 kilometers.

Using a combination of Soru and Geppo, Alex crossed that in distance in two seconds.

That’s 900 meters per second, or 2.62 mach speed, twice and a half the speed of sound. It was fortunate that Alex was at high altitude, or the resulting damage from the sonic boom would have shattered most surrounding windows and caused some measure of collateral damage.

The resulting sound was still loud as hell, though, causing a lot of passerby’s to look up in surprise. But most simply chalked it up to some sort of Jet.

But he didn’t really care, though. The moment he approached Central Park, his senses already picked up on lifeforce signatures that matched the given description.

A group of high-class people chasing another, the pursued had a very solid, very “condensed” lifeforce that seemed to be connected to something beyond his senses.

The pursuers however, had a very strange quality to them. If Alex were to be putting it in words, the closest description he could think of are dark light sticks.

So with another Soru empowered Geppo, he finds himself straight above the moving figure.

Sure enough, the person hunted was Amira, Cyrus’ adoptive mother. Seeing her in person, she was more beautiful and otherworldly.

But what was more important were her pursuers, for one, they didn’t wear any disguises as others were described, secondly, they flew using black wings, ranging from two to three pairs, and wielded light spears in combat.

But Alex didn’t care, he wished to reunite Cyrus with his mother, so he’s simply going to do that.

“Give us the dagger, it is Grigori property!” One of the fallen angels -presumably their leader- shouts at the amazonian.

The aforementioned woman stood shakily in an alley, surrounded by her fallen angels assailants. She tightens her hold over her spear, opening her mouth to answer.

Yet there were no needs, as Alex crashed to the ground, creating a crater, and on his was, he held the leader by the cranium.

For them, he might as well have simply appeared there, and with their leader rendered unconscious from the whiplash, they stood -or floated- stock still, shocked at the opposition.

“Seeing as this must be a misunderstanding.” Alex had noticed that the fallen didn’t really have any intent to kill. “I’ll keep you alive.”

First, he tried the old-fashioned Conqueror’s Haki shtick.

The fallen were clearly affected, he saw the sweat on their foreheads and their bodies flinch from the exertion, but they were able to fight his pressure.

“Some of you are clearly much weaker than that butler, and my Haki is definitely stronger.” Alex comments. “You must have had a lot of exposure to things like this, huh…”

One of them steps forward with great difficulty.

“We simply want to get back an artifact, she-“ He points to Amira.”-stole!”

“I didn’t steal anything, dumbass!” Amira’s voice had that deep timbre in the back that made unspoken parts of him tingle.

Alex holds a hand up, forestalling any argument. “So, here’s the situation, my friend here says she didn’t steal anything, but you somehow do.” He says. “What makes you think that, did you catch her in the act?”

Their spokesperson remains, before finally letting out a resigned sigh.

“The alarm was activated, and we received orders from the higher-ups that someone managed to steal the artifact and escape, someone with her general description.” He explains. “We found her in the vicinity, and we chased her here, the rest is history.”

“That’s strange.” Alex responds. “Because I apparently received directions to you by one Syraleth, the local head of the Grigori. And I don’t think helping you was the point.” He smiles. “So, here’s what’s going to happen, you will search Amira here, if you find your item, then you take it back and leave, if not, then you admit you’re wrong, and we discuss next steps.”

The Fallen hesitate for a while, sharing looks with each other, before nodding in reluctant assent.

Alex turns toward Amira, who warily looks at him.

“If you know what’s good for you.” He says. “Then you’ll let them search you.”

She glares back lovingly, letting out an angry huff.

“Fine.” With a gesture, her spear morphs into a pitch-black bracelet.

Putting it on, she steps forward with arms spread to the side. “Do you worst.” She growls.

The Fallen’s second in command steps forward, pulling out a strange blue gem out of nowhere.

“This will take but a moment.” A white light surges out of the crystal, scanning the body of the amazonian woman.

After a couple of seconds, the scanning ceases.

The fallen angel looks down at the crystal, it didn’t change colors.

His face pales. “She doesn’t have it.”

Amira growls once again. “I told you, I don’t have the dagger!” She shouts. “I was looking for the people trying to steal it!”

“Then why were you so close to the storage area, spying on our security?!” The fallen shouts back. “Quite suspicious for an innocent person!”

Amira growls once again, but gets interrupted by Alex raising his hands placatingly.

“Let’s not let things get heated.” Alex says. “It’s clear that both parties aren’t fully without blame for this situation. Moreover, this was clearly a diversion, whoever pit you two together, who’s to say that they aren’t stealing the dagger, right now?”

Everyone but Alex’s face goes still.

Alex drops the fallen leader to the ground, causing him to groan in pain as he wakes.

“I say we go catch us some thieves!”