Book 2 Chapter 3: An army and a gate

“I said, Next Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.............!!!!!!”(Katana)

“She’s going to be at this for awhile so, what kind of weaponry do you like using? I’ll make you something quick while she runs out of air.”(Diuscrucis)

Ignoring his mother, Diuscrucis turned back to the table and started placing pieces of metal down that started materializing out of thin air. Moving a few feet away from him I quickly give him my answer.

“I like pistols.”(Star)

‘Mumble’ “I think this might work.”(Diuscrucis)

Pulling out a pistol with dragon designs out from his draconic arm through a cool black particle effect, he places it on the table and starts adding parts to it. After a few minutes Katana takes a deep breath of air and goes quit.

“Is it next time already? It usually lasts longer than that.”(Diuscrucis)

“Yay… Hitting a motivation wall right now. I hate having so little energy to express myself. Now about the empress...” (Katana)

Wait. What? Part of what she said didn’t sound right. It was like that was not her actually speaking… why isn't Diuscrucis reacting to it? Her voice sounded like an older brother trying to explain something to his whining little sister….Was it just my imagination?

‘Rudely interrupting’ “We will deal with her later. First I need to deal with the undead army that has been roaming around the outskirts of the zone.”(Diuscrucis)

“But…”(katana)

“No buts, ands, ifs, or whys. I don’t want you spoiling the future for me.”(Diuscrucis)

“But…”(Katana)

“No.”(Diuscrucis)

“What…”(Katana)

“Everything and anything can and will go wrong so No.”(Diuscrucis)

‘Opens her mouth’ “...”(Katana)

“Nooooooooo.”(Diuscrucis)

‘Pout’ “Fine have it your way. Just remember that when it comes down to it I will not hesitate to cheat my way to victory.”(Katana)

“I know you won’t….. Done. Here you go Star. A Combat pistol complete with a reinforced casing, barbed hooks, and interchangeable mana and improvised ammunition loading chamber. It should be an excellent weapon for a while I just suggest you don’t put it to the test against laser beams or glow sticks… or crying women….”(Diuscrucis)

‘While taking the gun from him’ “Wait, why that last one?”(Star)

‘Looking absentmindedly into the distance’ “Jealous women can uncover any secret, Angry women can continue to beat your ass even after they die, and crying women….. their mere existence can at best cause someone to give up or beat someone else up. At worst it is capable of crushing kingdoms, cause friends and family to butcher each other, have reality warp to their will, and have the very laws of reality change to fit their needs.”(Diuscrucis)

Wait. Can that really happen?

“That is impossible. I think.”(Star)

‘Side glance’ “If you say so.”(Diuscrucis)

“It only happened one time!”(Katana)

“You still managed to pull it off!”(Diuscrucis)

“Holy shit!”(Star)

Ignoring what I can tell will be a long and boring conversation of “It’s all your fault, No it’s yours!” I take a closer look at the gun in my hand. It looks like any old black pistol with an extended block front. A weird dragon design is lightly glowing red. The front of the gun has two long hooks extending five or so inches from the top and bottom of the barrel. The grip of the gun has holes in the back which I can only assume is meant to show how much ammo is left in the gun...Fifteen shots. I at most have fifteen shots before I need to reload. Pushing mana into the gun, green light started to appear in the top hole and then to the one right under it when the light coming from the first hole was shinning brightly. Loading all the ammo into the gun, I aimed over the table and fired at a Demon who was sleeping on the floor.

‘Bang’ “Please don’t kill my men and also I am going with you two for your big battle. I also want to ride in your mech.”(Katana)

The result was that a green blast of air shot forward, his head exploded, everyone looks my way, the Demon quickly comes back to life and glares at me, Katana scolds me, and the bottom most hole loses all light.

“ Fires better than the crossbow and has a manna cap per a shot.”(Star)

“You used one of my crossbows?”(Diuscrucis)

“Ya during the Heaven and Hell Competition I used one of your new models as my weapon.”(Star)

“....Cool. Now let’s go. I just want to get this done. Mom, you can come too but you won’t use my mech until a fight starts.”(Diuscrucis)

‘Sounds way to excited’ “Excellent let’s go!... Wait before we go I want to show you something! Follow me! You also used the wrong too Star.”(Katana)

“Mom!”(Diuscrucis)

“Ok. Ok. I’ll stop.”(Katana)

Ignoring the scolding Diuscrucis was giving his mom, I silently followed behind them as we left the facility without trouble and went deeper into east zone. As we walked I finally managed to hook my gun into the loops at the top of my pants that are meant for a belt. Looking up I see Diuscrucis staring at what I’m doing by looking over his shoulder. After a moment he faces forward again asks his mom where we are going. To which she laughs and continues to walk without saying anything. After a few minutes I start to see what looks like a small dome in the distance. After awhile it starts to get bigger and I see that it’s not a dome but an arch that is going to be miles high and wide by the time we get there. When we were about an hour away from the foot of the structure, steam started to slowly radiate from the two demons in front of me. Since the steam is getting worse the closer we are to the structure then that means it must be some kind of holy place. When we were half an hour away the skin on both of them started burning with small flames but then it quickly stopped and they kept walking like nothing happened while exchanging experiences they had while in the Underworld. To think Katana had regular betting competitions with Death. After awhile I started feeling nauseous but the feeling quickly passed after a few minutes and the burn marks on those two completely disappeared. When we were five or so minutes from the towering structure that is obviously buried beneath the ground, I brought up the topic about books and managed to enjoy talking to those two for several minutes before we arrived outside a very large hole. The hole was shaped more like a crater with a smooth slope going down to the bottom. The structure is still an arch but judging from how much is dug out it looks like it will be awhile before anyone will be able to find out just how big or what shape this building actually is. For now it’s large, bulky, white, and seems to have lots of writing on it. Activating my [Dragon’s Eye] I try to read what’s on the structure but...

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“Why is the structure covered in bombs, mailboxes, skulls, and hands?”(Star)

“Is this a realm gate? It’s at least five times bigger than any of the other ones.”(Diuscrucis)

“It is and we don’t know why those symbols are there. Give me a minute I will go get the thing I wanted to show you.”Katana)

After watching Katana run towards an angel, I started looking around. Inside the hole are thousands of angels digging out the structure with many many more flying away, towards or just resting at the sides of this structure. The weird thing is that the angels look sick. Like someone has been forcing them to work for weeks with little food and water but I see no one who is in charge or anyone resisting. As I look around I see Katana rush back and she shows us a piece of paper. Looking at it Diuscrucis looks frustrated and I can sort of understand why.

❄︎♒︎♏︎ ⬥︎□︎❒︎●︎♎︎ □︎♐︎ 👌︎☜︎☝︎✋︎☠︎☠︎✋︎☠︎☝︎💧︎ ♓︎⬧︎ ■︎□︎⧫︎ ⬥︎♒︎♋︎⧫︎ ❍︎□︎⬧︎⧫︎ ⬥︎♓︎●︎●︎ ♒︎♋︎❖︎♏︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ♌︎♏︎●︎♓︎♏︎❖︎♏︎. ☞︎□︎❒︎ □︎■︎●︎⍓︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ ♍︎♋︎■︎ ♍︎❒︎♏︎♋︎⧫︎♏︎ ■︎♏︎⬥︎ 👌︎☜︎☝︎✋︎☠︎☠︎✋︎☠︎☝︎💧︎ ♌︎◆︎⧫︎ □︎■︎●︎⍓︎ 💧︎☟︎☜︎ ♍︎♋︎■︎ ♌︎❒︎♓︎■︎♑︎ 🕆︎💧︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎

“What kind of language is this? Gods my eyes hurt! Whenever I think I can see a letter it’s accompanied by extreme pain and I forget what I just saw. This is not a language that can be used in this world…. Why is it on this thing?”(Diuscrucis)

“We have no idea. No one has a clue on how to start translating this language and even worse look at the back of the paper. Whatever it says is covering most of what is visible on the structure. For all we know it’s telling us about the end of the world or something.”(Katana)

✋︎ ♐︎♓︎■︎♎︎ ♓︎⧫︎ ♒︎♓︎●︎♋︎❒︎♓︎□︎◆︎⬧︎ ⧫︎♒︎♋︎⧫︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ♋︎●︎●︎ ⬥︎♏︎■︎⧫︎ □︎◆︎⧫︎ □︎♐︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎❒︎ ⬥︎♋︎⍓︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎❒︎♋︎■︎⬧︎●︎♋︎⧫︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎. ☹︎⚐︎☹︎

‘In a mildly surprised voice’ “This is wingdings.”(Star)

“What?”(Katana)

“The language is wingdings. It’s a code language that is unreadable to anyone who doesn’t know how to decode it. For creatures like Demons who have a translation ability, if they are not strong enough then they will even have trouble viewing the language.”(Star)

“Can you translate it?”(Diuscrucis)

‘With a voice of absolute confidence’ “Without question I can not translate even a single letter of that code.”(Star)

“Can’t you go into the future and learn the language for us and then come back and translate it or something?”(Katana)

‘Look of horror’ “No!”(Star)

‘Puppy dog eyes’ “Come on please?”(Katana)

“No! In my time there are only six realm gates. I’m not going to help bring about a seventh one!”(Star)

‘Sigh’ “Fine have it your way.”(Katana)

“It hardly matters anyway. We’re not going to be able to use this thing any time soon anyway. Mom you should probably let their higher ups know that they should only have a few thousand Angels here at one time and have everyone else get on with their regular east zone business. The central zone leaders are wondering what has happened and if they don’t start hearing some noise from here soon then you are about to have a lot of uninvited guests wanting to see what’s up.”(Diuscrucis)

“..... I’ll go do that.”(Katana)

As Katana turns around and starts walking away, Diuscrucis tells her one last thing.

“I’m off to get my mech. I’ll see you in front of the research facility. We’ll head out from there.”(Diuscrucis)

With those words they both teleported away and……. Left me behind.

“Come on guys. What the hell? Am I really not that memorable?”(Star)

After a few minutes of waiting I was about to walk away to get a ride back when Diuscrucis appeared right in front of me, grabbed me by the shoulder and teleported us back outside the lab we were just in a few hours ago. This time however there is a 127 meter battle ready mech that has been painted dark silver with some purple highlights across the entire body.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to forget about you like that.”(Diuscrucis)

“Please don’t do it again.”(Star)

“I will make no such promise.”(Diuscrucis)

A short time later Katana flies out of the lab on a hoverboard and comes towards us wearing a slutty red battle armor and had two machetes sheathed on her back. Jumping off she lands next to me and takes the board under her arm like it’s not some kind of dangerous weapon or something.

‘With a slight blush while rubbing his face with one hand’ “...................... Ya let’s go.”(Diuscrucis)

Boarding the mech through the elevator in it’s leg, we arrive inside the command room and Katana starts touching everything in the area. Farthest to the left is an arcade gaming console with all the standard buttons and joystick. To the right is dance dance revolution platform. The center has a scanner to track the movements of the driver. To the right of the scanner is a motorcycle in it’s own smaller sphere that has levers and hand grips inside. The area farthest to the right is a console with a gaming controller. All the areas have a small screen in front of them as well as a much larger screen in front of the command room. Katana quickly did a sweep of the place and ended on the central scanners.

“Let’s go!”(Katana)

Tossing a key at Katana Diuscrucis walks to the dancing platform and lays down on it. Following behind him I lean on the arcade and ask him a question while the mech starts moving north.

“I’ve changed my mind practice using the mech because you might not have a chance to later.”(Diuscrucis)

“Hell ya! Let’s get this party started”(Katana)

Very quickly the mech started breakdancing before going into a full on sprint.

“Why is part of the mech purple?”(Star)

“I started painting its base color so I could give it some cool design but I ran out of paint and some stuff came up so I haven’t bought more.”(Diuscrucis)

“I see.”(Star)

______________________________________________________________________________

* Several hours later

After traveling for several hours, continuing our long conversation about books and the meaning of a classical story, we finally see a an army base in the distance. By the way did you know Diuscrucis has like fifteen Shake a Pear plays memorized? That’s more than my old college professor and he loved the guy.

“It looks like we are here. Park the mech mom. I don’t want you angering them and forcing us to kill them all.”(Diuscrucis)

“Sure thing.”(Katana)

Getting out of the mech we meet with several thousand fully armed skeletal soldiers after walking for several minutes. Pulling out a small house hammer from his shadow Diuscrucis talks in a calm voice while playing with the tool in his hand.

“Hello everyone I would like talk to the person or people in charge of your army. If all goes well we can team up and take down the empress once and for all. ‘Crunch’ ‘Boom’ Anyone else?”(Diuscrucis)

Asking to see the leader of the skeleton army after just arriving in a giant robot and having a weapon at the start of the talk is understandably not very friendly so, when one skeleton with a shield charged at him the other skeletons were completely shocked when he crushed their friend and acted like nothing happened. The shield broke into pieces from the force, the skeleton was crushed and most of it’s body was turned into dust. After a minute of silence the army splits in two and makes a path directly to their camp.

‘Slight smile’ “Thank you.”(Diuscrucis)

“What happened to not angering them?”(Star)

“I didn’t make them angry. I simply made them respect someone far more powerful than them.”(Diuscrucis)

Saying that we entered a large red tent that is surrounded by hundreds of smaller white tents in a location that reminds me of old military action movies with soldiers running around everywhere and things being prepared for war not so far away. Once inside the red tent I look around and see a map of what I can only assume to be north zone considering that the center of it has the words “Land of the thieving bitch” in big, bold, partially transparent letters. The map is on a large table in the center of the room. The only other thing in here is a black cloaked sky blue skeleton with bright sparkly blue eyes and a triangle in the center of his head. The skeleton stands across from us on the other side of the table.

‘Kind old man voice’ “What did you want to see me about?”(Blue skeleton)

“I am under orders from my boss to get rid of this army here and bring down the mad empress. So you help me beat her and your army disbands.”(Diuscrucis)

“That sounds reasonable. What’s your plan of attack?”(Blue skeleton)

‘Said with excessive amounts of bloodlust’ ‘Feral grin’ “We charge through the front door and kill anything that gets in our way!”(Katana)

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”(Blue skeleton)

“I own a mech so I’m fairly certain I can destroy an entire wall within a minute and lead you into the main areas of battle with ease.”(Diuscrucis)

“That might have been good a few days ago but we just got a report that four women have joined her army and as a show of their strength to the empress they took down her entire army. That happened no more than two hours ago.”(Blue skeleton)

Wait it can’t be the new summoned heroes right? If so then how did they travel north so quickly?

“That changes nothing. Leave those four to me.”(Diuscrucis)

“.....Fine but will you at least follow me. There is a type of undead soldier that I am certain you have never seen before.”(Blue skeleton)

“Lead the way.”(Diuscrucis)

Following the blue skeleton out of the tent, we walk a complicated path of turns and arrive in front of an underground entrance. Walking passed it the skeleton leader opens a large hatch on the floor that is made of bricks and is only a few meters in any one direction. Looking inside I gasp at what I see. There are hundreds of rotting corpses down there and all of them are shuffling around the large room below the hatch.

“Zombies.”(Star)

“You know about these creatures ma’am?”(Blue skeleton)

“They are undead monsters born from when a person dies of excessive radiation poisoning. And I mean excessive. Like enough radiation is on them that people three buildings over can get cancer from it. These creature are strong, moderately mobile when hungry, and love to eat meat. Usually brains and intestines. The easiest way to kill them is to cut off their heads. Beyond that is to destroy the head or total disintegration.”(Star)

‘Joyous laughter’ “We are changing the battle plan because I know these guys will be useful in our battle against the empress. ‘With a sinister grin’ Oh this is going to be fun.”(Diuscrucis)