Gigan’s shriek grated against Harry’s ears. Harry had never before seen or dealt with a kaiju before and concluded one thing—they were loud. Some of the glass facing the monster cracked from the force of the noise alone. He caught a glimpse of a flying saucer with the face of a horned giant soaring up behind it before he heard Hellboy snarl loudly, “Okay, folks—it’s party time!”
Harry’s attention turned to the hallway and watched it fill with the Hellfrogs he saw before. The hail of bullets, lightning and quickly following them, his spells easily put the monsters down. Translucent green liquid burst from where the monsters were hit, quickly coating the walls and floor with the slime before Harry’s busts of flame vaporized the liquid, their ashes quickly replaced the substance which passed for blood in coating the hall.
Harry would have called it almost unfair—but playing fair more often than not got you killed.
The Hellfrog charge came to an end as abruptly as it began, leaving the hall thick with smoke.
From this smoke, a new figure strolled onto the battlefield. 4 more identical figures followed the first, joining it and standing in a “V” formation.
Harry spoke before he could properly analyze them, he blurted out: “Evil Power Rangers?”
Though they all wore the same color, their helmets had an animal motif to it that was not easily identifiable.
Harry turned to Buffy, “They weren’t in the briefing, were they?”
“No,” Buffy said, “They look like a new type of Kaijin.”
Hellboy scratched his chin, “Or could they be--”
“Well,” Dante said, “If these
Emo-Rangers want to dance, I say we let them.”
Harry grumbled about the pretty boy’s use of his epithet, but it was soon drowned out as he and his lady friends opened fire.
Lightning and bullets flew towards the black figures—who stood there as though the torrent as a light breeze with some snow. Harry gave them a closer look and saw slight yellow rippling around the points of impact.
“Now, now,” A young voice echoed through the hall, “that won’t get you anywhere.”
From behind the Emo-Rangers a boy of about 14 years old from Harry’s guess stepped out. He was lightly built and dressed cleanly, though his hair was messy. Black pants and white shirt did little to hide the fact that the boy was almost an albino—white skin, gray hair and red eyes.
Harry was pretty sure this “Boy” wasn’t human. If he was one of the more advanced super soldiers, they wouldn’t last long.
“Besides, the reunion would be ruined if the Anubis Drones killed you all,” The boy continued.
Hellboy kept his gun aimed at the boy, “And who are you, Shorty?”
“Oh,” The boy smiled, “is that a question for the ages.”
“Are you sometimes a photographer,” Harry said, “sometimes a race driver and sometimes a nurse—because, I gotta tell you there’s these girls I’ve met in the last week who--”
“I’d like to think I’m a bit more grandiose than a Robot and a Fangirl,” the boy looked around at the architecture lazily, “Today I am
Kaworu Nagisa. Before that, I was simply Him. Before that I was called Mephilas-seijin, Ryo Asuka, He Who Walks Behind the Light of His Soul---once people even called me Satan.”
Harry heard Michael’s gauntlet-protected fists clench around his sword.
He let that sink in before he continued, “Which is of course, ridiculous and insulting—being lumped in with those lesser beings….”
Harry was rather annoyed—if this thing was half the stuff it claimed to be, they were in deep trouble. But it was being so coy about its identity that he couldn’t be sure if it was telling the truth or just talking out its ass. It was pretty clear that this was one of the few extremely powerful entities that
could lie.
“So why are you here?” Buffy asked the boy.
“A job’s a job,” Kaworu said, “But I’m choosing to interpret it in my own way. I’d rather not have these empty hulks tear through your defenses. What I intend to do here is something you would greatly appreciate. And, obviously, it can’t happen when you’re dead.
“So, I’m going to ask you nicely. Step aside and let me give you your surprise.”
“We do not make deals with devils,” Michael challenged, “especially not in a house of God!”
“May I ask a question?” The remaining Robot, Harry believed his name was Gesicht, asked, his P-90 remaining fixed on the enemies before them.
“I see no harm in it,” Kaworu answered.
“Is this objective,” he motioned slightly to the statue, “what Millennium ordered you to retrieve?”
Kaworu blinked, “Very perceptive. I assume you figured it out.”
“I have.”
“So is that a private conversation,” Harry asked, “Or can anyone join in?”
“Go ahead and tell them,” Kaworu said, “It doesn’t hurt me to let them know the truth, though I was hoping the fabled Anung Un Rama would already know.”
“Hey,” Hellboy spat, “Happy to disappoint.”
“It would appear that Millennium has hedged their bet. A few of the targets they are ostensibly here to capture are simply decoys meant to spread out our forces so that they can more easily claim their true objectives,” Gesicht said, “and this is one of those targets.”
“So this was a waste of time?” Dante sneered.
“For them, that is the plan,” Kaworu said, “They want War, first and foremost. Rather gaudy, actually. To be honest, I’m simply using their opportunity to take care of my own agenda. Your intelligence was right on the target—but it is what
I want, not what The Major wants.”
Kaworu tilted his said to the side, “come to think of it, some of you shouldn’t be too adverse to what I aim to do.”
“You wish to release a powerful demon from its imprisonment,” Gesicht said, “there are few situations where that would be a positive outcome.”
“Tell me, do you know the name of the demon imprisoned behind you?” Kaworu smirked.
“Don’t know,” Buffy said, “Don’t care. You’re pretentious. Are you going to kill us yet?”
Kaworu let out a small laugh, “If things go well, I won’t have to.”
“Which probably means the thing in the statue will do it,” Harry grumbled, “I hate cat-pawing.”
Kaworu didn’t answer.
“I really hate cat pawing,” Harry repeated as he raised his staff—
And was promptly bowled aside, along with the defensive wall they set up by a multi-layered translucent barrier with a color scheme similar to a light oil slick in water—a sickly rainbow of colors. The barriers stopped just short of the statuary, but knocked them all off their feet with one push.
With a wave of the hand, Kaworu said, “Leave us, Drones. Go terrorize the peons for a bit.”
The Drones turned and left without a single word as Harry and his allies slowly pulled themselves up.
“Inside that prison is the still living demon Amon Sparda, Dante. Your father,” Kaworu’s voice remained soft despite the intensity he put behind it, “Knowing that, do you still want to stop me?”
Kaworu did nothing more as chaos erupted around him. Though bullets, lightning blasts, spells and the occasional missile were all directed at Kaworu’s form, they all bounced off the strange shield.
“I never knew my father,” Dante barked, punctuating his words with bullets, “Don’t really want to know him either.”
“There’s a reason why I wished to talk you out of fighting me,” Kaworu sighed, “simply put, you have no chance of defeating me. And I do not wish to grievously harm any of you. But if I defend myself—”
A spear thrown by Buffy slammed into the field, holding for a moment before being blown to pieces.
“If you insist,” Kaworu resigned himself, raising one hand and a
lightshown forth—but aimed not at Buffy. Instead it struck the blonde woman who came with Dante. She stopped dead, grabbed her head and screamed, falling into a fetal position as the light followed her.
That scream haunted the dreams of everyone who had them in the room for months to come.
Dante, Hellboy Michael and the woman in fatigues rushed Kaworu and began to hack away at the shield, with only Michael having any progress, Amoracchius deforming layer upon layer of the shield, but it remained standing as a whole. Buffy and Gesicht were about to join them when Harry grabbed their shoulders.
“I have something of a plan,” Harry said.
“Be quick,” Buffy snapped. Gesicht simply nodded.
“There’s a spell I recently learned that may be able to get past that shield,” Harry scowled, “But I need to do the full incantation to get it right. Could you cover me until then?”
“Wait a second,” Buffy said, “Who taught you this spell?”
Harry sighed, “Eiko Megami.”
“Figures,” Buffy replied, “She insisted I learn a pair of moves—but with that barrier up, they’re not much good. Let’s hope you can break it.”
“We’ll cover you,” Gesicht said and moved in front of him.
“Hopefully, those guys can keep him--” Buffy’s words were cut off as the field expanded and slammed the quartet of fighters against the wall, leaving imprints on their backs. Kaworu also let the light fade from his hand, allowing the blond woman to drop; her eyes open in a wholly unhealthy state—tear stains outlining her face. The quartet dropped with her, unmoving.
“Me and my big mouth,” Buffy sighed.
“I told you,” Kaworu said, “You have no chance of defeating me. Just let me pass.”
“Do you think you can grab Lady and run back here?” Gesicht asked the Slayer.
“I’ll have to dig deep into my bag of tricks, why?”
“I have a Zeronium shell in my left hand.”
“I should probably know what that is...”
“It is a refined form of Sakuradite that is a powerful explosive. It might damage the field he generates, not as much as Michael sword, sadly—but it would kill Lady and Michael if it struck him in the current configuration.”
Buffy gave a curt nod, and began to mumble, “Chi in the right hand, Magic in the left…”
A sound similar to muffled thunder hit Harry’s ears, but his concentration did not break. His mind focused, he began the spell:
“
Obscura praeter crepusculum.
Coccina praeter cruorem profluens.
Sepulta in flumine aevi.
In magno nomini tuo,
spondeo me in tenebris.
Nam quicumque aduersa,
Qui stultis,
sit nostra potestate cogi, i
ta ut omnes perdidit.”
The ringing sound of Kaworu’s shield striking matter hit Harry’s ears as Buffy rolled out in front of Gesicht with the woman in fatigues, Lady, in tow and a cut over her eye, forcing it shut.
Gesicht did not wait for her even to slide to a halt before he lifted his hand and let forth a rocket—the explosion almost broke Harry’s concentration and clearly blew out the walls around the demon, and knocked Hellboy and Dante back towards the others, groaning from the explosion rousing them from the concussed state.
The smoke had barely cleared when Harry saw Kaworu’s outline and wasted no time, he completed the incantation: “
Draco Tyrannicida!”
The flash of green-white light nearly blinded Harry and his shield flickered in the wake of the heat produced as a scorching sound echoed in the remains of the hall.
When the light faded and the dust began to settle, there was nothing left before him. Everything the green-white light touched was reduced to rubble. He couldn’t tell how big the crater because of the smoke, but Harry was certain about one thing—Anderson was going to kill him
A deep, gravelly laugh interrupted his fretting, “Most amusing,” the voice said through the smoke, “I did not even consider you could get me to reveal my base form. You humans never cease to surprise me.”
The creature, he assumed it was Kaworu, was ugly. Not mind numbingly horrifying—inhuman to be sure, but just ugly. It had cat like ‘ears’ that were more tufts of flesh than true ears. Its blue eyes were thin pointed ovals held in an 'V' shape. The body was pear-shaped as well as the color and texture of tire rubber with about the same thickness. It had no mouth either, but a vertical stripe on which a light traveled up again and again in a steady pattern as it talked.
“You managed to touch me with your fire, wizard. You should be rewarded,” Kaworu raised his right arm up, fist clenched and slapped his left hand on his right elbow—a stream of lightning rocketed forth and struck Harry’s shield full on—which shattered it. Harry’s mind went fuzzy for a few moments as his body was blown aside. He was knocked aside into Buffy, bowling the smaller woman over. He glimpsed Gesicht in a similar predicament, blasted aside by the lightning, “but not today.”
Nothing stood between Kaworu and the statue as he casually strode up to it and caressed its check.
“Maybe this time,” he murmured before literally disappearing—blinking out of the scene. An evil, echoed laugh following his absence and faded.
“I guess that means we lost,” Buffy said as she picked herself and Harry off the ground.
The others followed, though Dante and the woman called Lady had to drag the blonde in the corset to the side—she had thankfully lost consciousness.
Michael readied his sword, pointing it to the statuary—though nothing happened for a few long seconds.
“All that for so he could cop a feel on a statue,” Hellboy scoffed.
“He probably infused it with his power to break the seal,” Harry corrected, “so let’s see what’s inside the piñata.”
The first cracks began to appear in the façade, followed by another and another—until the entire surface shattered and crumbled away, revealing
a monster as much like a stereotypical devil as anything Harry had scene before—it was almost re-assuring. Though it was still quite different. It was more black and pale skin-tone than the classic red, which only brightly shown from the skin folds between its bat-like wings. It had hairy legs with claws like those of a bear on its feet. The tail was a classic demonic ‘arrow’ in shape. The hair on its head formed a shape reminiscent of a bat, with a wing protruding from either side, and two antennae sticking out from its forehead. Sharp claws, a mildly protruding jaw with sharp teeth rounded out his overall humanoid shape.
It looked up at the remaining defenders and screamed its roar before charging them, claws extended.