Raylix pulled on a black t-shirt as Lilith finished telling the second part of her story, and gestured to a spot on her bed in front of one of two trays of food that Lilith had ordered from Adam for them: a small spread of meat, rice and wine. Grinning, and running his damp hair out of his face with one hand, he joined her at the spot in question, accepting the quick kiss Lilith gave him as the pair of them tucked into their respective meals.
"So, after I found out which power of his I had in question, I went to work behind the scenes." Lilith continued. "Putting Satanic Sovereignty to use, taking whichever Clan powers I could get away with. A noble on their deathbed after facing off against a Stray Devil here, a couple of exact words-bargains there, the odd final member of an on-their-way-out family that no-one would miss, and come nowadays, I think I've got… just under a third of all the family powers that Lucifer gave away? Fleurety's Crushing, Marchiosias' Excruciation, Stolas' Unholy Lightning, Beelzebub and Asmodeus' King of Flies and Spirit King… and yes, Marbas' Hell Grip."
To underline the point, she leaned back in bed, setting her wine-glass down on a table to one side… before it lifted up of its own accord, travelled to her mouth and tilted its contents into it, which she swallowed before taking it in one hand and swirling its contents around the glass.
"And many more in-between, I bet." Raylix remarked. "That certainly does track with a few incidents I heard about on the other end, before I left. By any chance, did you get Stolas' power relatively recently? From a total bitch of an Heiress? Phi… something, I think her name was?"
Lilith let out a small giggle, continuing to swirl her glass' contents around.
"I sure did." She replied. "Phisana, indeed, her name was. And yes, I'd describe her as a total bitch, too."
"That was it." Raylix nodded, through his mouthful of meat, before swallowing with a grin. "I just remember Ruvella… telling me about someone who'd lost access to their power for a totally unexplained reason around the time our wedding was being planned. Nipped the idea of her being one of her bridesmaids in the bud, for sure."
His grin faded slightly at the mentioned of his former fiancée, which he attempted to hide by stuffing some more meat and rice between his lips.
Lilith didn't comment on that, merely letting out a snort as she took another sip of wine before setting her glass down, and tucking into her own meal.
"Before you running out on everyone nipped EVERYTHING in the bud." She replied.
"Also…" Raylix looked over at her. "Satanic Sovereignty?"
Lilith shrugged, running a hand through her dry hair as she adjusted her position on their bed.
"I figured my new power deserved a name other than 'Lucifer's Distribution power'." she replied. "Came from THE Satan himself, and like it or not, I've been seen as a sovereign of sorts ever since Lucifer… found and took me."
Raylix tilted his head, resting it on one of Lilith's shoulders while reaching around to rest and rub one of his hands on the other one.
"Being able to give and take demonic abilities as I saw fit just let me feel a bit more like a Queen, I guess." She mused. "Officially, I mean."
"You're more than a Queen to me, Lil." Raylix murmured, tilting his head to kiss her neck. "Way more. You know that."
Lilith let out another soft giggle at the feeling of Raylix's lips on her neck, smiling over at him as he pulled away and resumed his lunch.
"That's very sweet of you." She spoke. "Thanks for that."
"Anytime." Raylix shrugged, his mouth half-full. "So, what about the other one? The 'creation' power?"
Lilith didn't reply immediately, only adjust her position on the bed again and take a breath as she set her tray a little bit further away from herself.
"Still in crystal-form." She replied. "Somewhere safe. Along with everything else I could pilfer from Zaorama's hidden lab."
Raylix blinked.
"You didn't take it?"
"I chose not to." Lilith confirmed, slowly exhaling. "You obviously weren't around for Lucifer making and providing the 72 Pillars with their prized powers, how he made the powers that he did was… how do I put it… a lot less subtle than Satanic Sovereignty. A lot harder to use without leaving any evidence behind. If I began making powers and handing them out to whatever trusted allies I might or might not have had at the time, giving them free reign to use said powers, there would be… questions. That I'm not prepared to answer."
Raylix nodded, shifting his own tray a little bit further away from himself, letting out a breath.
"Yeah, I can imagine." He replied. "Like 'how the hell did the two powers that made Lucifer the god among Devils he's considered end up in the hands of his wife now, of all times?', 'If anyone can get a power, then what's the damn point in following the nobles that are only respected above everyone else because of their unique powers?', 'How hard do I have to bend over and open my asshole for you to stick a power in me?'"
Lilith reached over and lightly flicked Raylix on the head, but he spied a grin forming on her face.
"No need to be crude, not while we're eating." She remarked. "But I suppose you're correct, in essentials. A can of worms that I'd prefer to keep firmly closed, for the foreseeable future."
"Somehow, I'm sensing a theme." Raylix replied, recalling the conversation he and Lilith had had after he'd apologised to Irene, Hikari, Kurumi and the rest for his behaviour.
After he and Lilith had spent an evening and night… making up for lost time, after she'd restored his sealed memories of that night by the lake.
"Mm." Lilith hummed, nodding and looking down at herself, her tone becoming softer. "Not to mention, I had reason to believe that though it would've been a net positive to any allies that- again- I might or might not have had at the time, it would've been a net negative for me. I remember Lucifer making powers of all kinds, trying to come up with the perfect roster of abilities to hand down to his chosen 72 Pillars, and him complaining about how much it took out of him after a long day of 'experimenting'… that he'd take out on me."
Raylix let out a sympathetic hum, reaching up and rubbing Lilith's back with a free hand while he took a gulp or two of his own wine.
"Of course, he'd regain whatever power he lost making those powers within a year or two from most of the Underworld worshipping the ground he walked on, and then some." Lilith continued, after a breath. "Probably a trait he kept from his old life as Yahweh's right hand. But the point is, God of Devils as Lucifer might have been, I'm not that, not by a long shot. So, I wouldn't have that to fall back on if I made too many powers."
"Sounds like Hell." Raylix remarked. "Having and making so many abilities without the power to even use them. I mean, the kind of Hell Humans believe in, not actual Hell."
"I believe the proper term is 'Malebolge', but that doesn't roll off the tongue as well." Lilith remarked. "But there was… another reason. My choice to abstain from Lucifer's Creation wasn't solely a practical one… there was a personal aspect to it, as well."
Raylix waited, taking a gulp or two of his own wine.
"While taking Satanic Sovereignty… I saw myself, in the reflection of one of the Malebolge's containment pods." She spoke. "But it… wasn't me. Not as you see me now, but as a twisted second version of him. I… felt him, Raylix. Or… part of him. Pushing through, attempting to claim my body as he'd done so many times before. It… wasn't something I wanted to risk again, especially for a power I didn't even see much point in taking, at the time."
Raylix nodded, swallowing his present mouthful of wine before shovelling a mixture of meat and rice into his mouth as well.
"I can understand that." He replied, his voice gentler than usual as he rested a hand on Lilith's, one of his fingers lightly playing with the engagement ring on her finger. "Guess some crowns aren't worth wearing. Even for a Goddess."
Lilith let out another breath, sighing as she felt Raylix's hand on hers, before turning to gently clutch it.
"Besides," Raylix shrugged. "You're already the most dangerous demon- Devil or Lilim- alive."
"Exactly." Lilith nodded, her lips curving upwards slightly. "Alive. And I don't plan on changing that anytime soon."
Raylix grinned, gently pulling his hand away and tucking back into what was left of his lunch.
"Good." He spoke, chewing on the last of the meat on his plate before swallowing. "So, where is it now?"
"Hm?"
"Lucifer's Creation power?" Raylix spoke. "The Malebranche? That stored-up lifespan? The book? That all still knocking around somewhere?"
For a second, Lilith didn't answer. Scooping up some of her own share of rice and stabbing through another piece of meat, she gave Raylix a knowing smile.
Line Break
"Under here, the whole time?"
Lilith smirked from in front of Raylix as she pushed open the door to her human-world villa- the very same villa that Raylix and his crew had stumbled on months ago, that Lilith had allowed them to stay at before the plan to take over the True Satan Faction and turn it into the Underworld Reformation Faction was formed- and held it open with one of her tails to allow Raylix to walk through after her.
"I don't recall you ever asking about any secret stuff while you were staying here with me." Lilith remarked as she made a beeline for the dining room, to a blank stretch of wall opposite the window. "Never saw fit to tell you. Until now."
Reaching up, she traced a practiced sigil into the air just in front of the wall. The stone shimmered for a second, before smoothly splitting and shifting apart like an automatic door, revealing a staircase that descended into darkness. With Lilith leading the way, down she and Raylix went, the air around them growing cooler with every step they took. It took about a dozen steps before they reached the bottom, with the staircase opening out into a chamber that seemed oddly familiar to how Lilith had described the laboratory of Zaorama's that she'd found all those centuries ago… minus the break room.
Along the far wall, those same twelve containment pods she'd mentioned, each containing one of the Malebranche, sat. Looking over at one of the pods a bit more closely, Raylix saw how, rather than a whole single body (he SUSPECTED it was a body, at least), it looked more like multiple cracked pieces of the body of a creature that he couldn't quite describe. A quick look at all the other containment pods and the creatures within told him that they were all like that: fragmented husks as opposed to living weapons.
"So, uh…" Raylix began, looking between the broken Malebranche and Lilith before settling on the latter while leaning on the door. "There a reason why those… things, weren't ever used during the Great War? With how strong you've said they are from Zaorama's notes and Lucifer's personal notebook, wouldn't that have been a pretty easy way to win it all?"
Lilith hummed, casting her eyes around at the shattered Malebranche in their pods, before looking back at Raylix and shrugging.
"Maybe." She replied. "If by 'winning' you mean 'wrecking the entire world to the point that Lucifer's most accurate title post-war would be King of the Ashes'." She turned fully to face him, crossing her arms under her godlike bust. "I seem to recall hearing that you were close to the battle between your brother Sirzechs, and Branyx Beelzebub, during the Devil Civil War: do you remember what happened during that battle?"
"Vaguely." Raylix shrugged. "I remember Sirzechs telling me he swallowed some weird liquid that turned him into a giant fly that he had to erase from existence. Think it was the first time he'd ever done something on that level, if I remember right. He told me that Ajuka could never quite figure out just what that liquid was, from the sample he gave him."
"Well, I have the answer to that one." Lilith replied, gesturing to one of the containment pods in particular. "It was enchanted blood, from that Malebranche over there: Scarmiglione, I believe it went by in whatever life it formerly had. A small vial of it, causing the strongest Devil currently alive- at the very LEAST one of the top 3 strongest Devils to ever live- to start going at something approaching all-out in order to kill the one that took it. Now just imagine something like that, multiplied by ten, and then multiplied AGAIN by twelve."
Raylix paled.
"Yeah… you're right." He remarked, swallowing. "That sounds… world-destroying."
"ACTUALLY world-destroying." Lilith nodded. "Just like a High-Tier Longinus. Why do you think Lucifer had twelve of them made?"
"Huh?" Raylix blinked, before his mind caught up to what Lilith was implying. "Ohh, they were meant to be-"
"The demonic answers to the Longinus, yes." Lilith replied, slowly walking across the room. "With Lucifer himself as the thirteenth, their leader, the demonic True Longinus. Or something to that effect, since that thing likely had some of Yahweh's essence on it after it stabbed into his golden child."
"Sounds about right." Raylix muttered, as Lilith continued.
"With just ONE of those things having the same power-level as something like Annihilation Maker or Phantasmal Chronograph, it's no wonder Lucifer never saw fit to unseal them unless he was ABSOLUTELY SURE he had control over them. Would sure explain why he had a ritual planned to bind them to him upon his resurrection, at least."
As Raylix nodded, satisfied with his fiancée's explanation, she made her way towards a small table, on which sat two sealed boxes. One of which Lilith took a hold of and opened, revealing the single dull silver crystal within. It was a well-sized object, to Raylix's eyes, much bigger than any in his set of Evil Pieces that he'd been gifted by Ajuka Beelzebub soon after the Devil Civil War ended, and that were… probably halfway across the Underworld, if the amount of force he remembered hurling them out of his Gremory Castle bedroom window during a drunken rage with was anything to go by. The book, as ancient and weathered and on-the-edge-of-crumbling-to-dust as Lilith had described it, sat beside the boxes.
"You got a name for that one?" Raylix asked, his eyes flicking from the crystal in Lilith's hand, which was large enough to comfortably fill out her palm as she floated it up into the air.
Lilith hummed, her eyes flicking from Raylix to the crystal.
"Unholy Genesis." She remarked. "Like I said for Satanic Sovereignty, better than just calling it Lucifer's Creation power."
"Works for me." Raylix mused, as Lilith floated the crystal towards herself, before casting her eyes around the rest of the facility.
"I moved everything here as soon as I got a chance to, and had this villa made on top of it. Both to cover it up, and just as a second home to get away from it all whenever I needed to." She remarked. "Got a good deal for the land from Good King Henry, too. Definitely more scenic than under some scorched Great War battlefield."
"Guessing Zaorama's place under said scorched Great War battlefield is no more?" Raylix asked.
"Naturally." Lilith nodded. "Can't have anyone stumbling on his rotting corpse, after all. All the lifespans that he collected are in that other box, by the way." She gestured with a flick to the unopened box, her eyes returning to the crystal that contained Unholy Genesis. "I've been wondering about what to do with… all of this," she gestured to the Malebranche and the unopened box, again, before turning to Raylix "and though I'm still not sure about them, I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do with this."
The crystal span around in mid-air, under Lilith's mental command, before she began moving it through the air again… towards Raylix.
"I think you should have it."
Raylix blinked.
"What?"
"You know, like an engagement gift." Lilith said smoothly. "Since we ARE engaged, now."
Raylix arched a brow, letting out a light snort.
"Do engaged couples even do gifts for each other?" he asked. "Don't remember Ruvella giving me anything, or me her."
Lilith's lips curved upwards in amusement.
"How about as another token of our alliance, then?" she asked. "You know, like Rubilacxe was."
"Hell of a token." Raylix retorted. "Especially when we're already pretty rock-solid… or at least I like to think so."
Lilith let out a half-amused, half-exasperated scoff.
"Then forget about it being a gift, or token, or whatever." She replied, floating it closer to Raylix. "Maybe I just want my future husband to be strong, it could just be as simple as that. Maybe not as strong as me," she added, with a wry smirk in Raylix's direction. "But, you know, in the same league. Close. Taking in Unholy Genesis… would be a good first step towards that."
Raylix didn't reply for a couple of seconds, before reaching out for the Unholy Genesis crystal with one hand, which Lilith floated into it.
"Now you're talking my language." He replied, a light smirk crossing his own face, which Lilith could only respond to with another scoff.
"Tch. Men." She muttered under her breath. "So, you gonna take it?"
Raylix smirked, hearing Lilith's muttered remark but not commenting on it.
"If I even can." He replied, before pausing and looking from the crystal to Lilith. "Wait, can I? You barely survived the first one, and you're stronger than me, so…"
"That's true. I did, and I am." Lilith replied, her expression softening. "And actually, I think you can. Maybe even easier than I did."
Blinking, Raylix tossed the crystal up and down a couple of times, his eyes on Lilith's.
"How'd you arrive at that one?"
"Well, Raylix," Lilith spoke, her eyes remaining on Raylix's. "Biologically-speaking, I'm a different kind of demon to you, Raylix, and I'm not just speaking because of these." she gestured to her tails and horns. "But because of how I was made. Literally, because of what Lucifer did once he found me, after I left the Garden of Eden the first time."
She let out a sigh.
"Hell, I'm not sure if I'd have even managed to take Satanic Sovereignty in, had Yahweh not restored me like he did." She remarked. "Whether that played a part or not, I'm still closer to the Devils created by those Evil Pieces that Ajuka invented after the end of the Civil War than a natural Devil, which Lucifer became after he fell from Heaven… which you are. A natural-born, 'pure-blooded' Devil, who Lucifer had no direct hand in making nor did he ever interact with, to my knowledge. You're more spiritually compatible with that-" she pointed with one of her tails to the crystal still clutched in Raylix's hand. "than me. So compared to me, in theory, you should be pretty-much certain to take Unholy Genesis in without any issues."
Raylix blinked.
"Pretty much, certain?" he repeated, letting out a short laugh, as Lilith shrugged.
"It's just theory and study." She remarked. "What do you expect, from that alone?"
"Certain would be nice, given how much you want me to have this." Raylix replied, shaking the crystal in his hand. "Besides, didn't Lucifer's soul try to take you over from the inside when you took Satanic Sovereignty, or something?"
"Not exactly. It was more along the lines of the trace amounts of his demonic power that allowed Satanic Sovereignty to function in crystal-form in the first place." Lilith replied. "But if you're concerned about that…"
Snapping her fingers and stepping back, a two-person sofa materialised out of thin air in the chamber, one side of which she sunk into while looking up at Raylix.
"Come on." She patted her lap. "Lie down."
Raylix chuckled, muttering something about 'excuse to have me in your lap again', but complied, sitting down on the other side of the sofa and then dropping his head down onto her thighs. Lilith then rested one of her tails against her fiancé's hand that was holding the crystal and softly guided it towards his chest, while resting a hand on one of Raylix's temples.
"I'll monitor your internal flow from here." She spoke. "If there are any signs of it turning against you, then I'll step in and help. I was able to subvert any attempts at control from Lucifer before, so me doing it again, plus whatever efforts you put in, will definitely be enough."
"Got it." Raylix replied, glancing up at Lilith from his position on her thighs, and then down at the crystal. "Here goes nothing."
Taking a breath, he pressed the crystal against his chest, like he'd seen members of his mother's, his father's and even Sirzechs' peerage doing when being taken into the demonic fold. And like the Evil Pieces that all of those peerage members took in, the crystal sank through his skin as though melting into him, and dissolving in a soft flare of silver light.
For a moment, that was all that happened. Raylix stayed on Lilith's lap for a solid ten seconds after the crystal dissolved into himself, almost confused at how there seemed to be nothing untoward- either internal or external- going on with him after he'd taken it in. With how Lilith had described taking Satanic Sovereignty into herself, he was expecting… well, not what had just happened.
…
No sooner did that thought hit Raylix's head than the pain start hitting. He'd just began to get up from Lilith's lap, thinking it was all over, then he suddenly lurched forwards, inwards on himself. Falling off the sofa and coming down on the hard chamber floor, he gritted his teeth and tried, as Lilith had said, to put in the effort to not lose himself in the new power he'd just taken into himself.
Except… he didn't feel like he was under any threat of losing himself. There wasn't any threat of his internal demonic power, which he'd felt flowing around inside himself for so long that he barely even noticed it anymore, it was just natural to him now. No, it felt more like his power- both what he'd been born with and developed over his life and what he'd just taken into himself via the Unholy Genesis crystal, was… streamlining? Merging? Reforming? Realigning?
He'd probably be able to come up with the right word if it only felt like his internal power was being rearranged and forcibly streamlined in real-time, and not his very organs. Because for the love of SATAN, did this hurt!
Lilith was on him in a second, quickly and gently picking Raylix up by the head, kneeling down and returning it to her lap with one hand while gently wrapping his body up with her tails, through which she sent an arrangement of spells to numb the pain clearly coursing through her fiancé's body. The results were immediate, but dulled: Raylix's groans and yells of pain eventually stopped, but his lurching around within her tails didn't. Not entirely, at least, they were certainly less pronounced than the seconds between him getting up out of her lap the first time and when she'd taken him into it the second. Whatever was going on inside him, he was still feeling the impact of it, just not the pain.
Or at the very least, less of it.
"Stay with me, Raylix." Lilith whispered, one hand brushing across his forehead reassuringly. "You're doing well… whatever you're doing. Come on."
Truth be told, she didn't know what was going on. She was prepared to step in had she seen Raylix's hair and eyes flashing with HIS colours, like she so vividly remembered happening to her, but that hadn't happened. It seemed her theory about Raylix being able to integrate Unholy Genesis into himself was proving correct. Which only further begged the question of what else was going on with him.
But then, slowly, Raylix's lurching, twitching around in response to whatever was going on inside him… began to slow down still further. He opened his eyes, blinked a couple of times, his breathing steadying.
"You alright?" Lilith asked, releasing Raylix from the bonds of her tails as he made to get up. Dragging himself into a sitting position a couple of feet away from his fiancée, Raylix let out a slow breath. He reached up, brushed a couple of strands of auburn hair from his face, took in a slow breath, let it out.
"Yeah." He replied, after a few seconds. "I think so. I just feel… different."
Lilith blinked, and got to her feet. She offered a hand to Raylix, which he took, and let her pull him to his feet.
"Different, how?" Lilith asked, instinctively raising her hands to catch Raylix in the event that he went back down the second she let go of him, but that didn't end up happening. "Could you describe how?"
"It's like…" Raylix paused, frowned, searching for the right description. "it's streamlined. Everything feels simpler on the inside. Sharper. It feels weird to say because I'd been dealing with… myself before today, for my whole life, but it's flowing as one thing, instead of multiple."
"I see…" Lilith replied, biting her lip. "Try testing yourself on something."
Raylix nodded, looking around the chamber for a couple of seconds before his eyes settled on the table that the two boxes- one empty, one still full of a megaannum's worth of demonic lifeforce- and book rested on.
"You don't mind if…" he trailed off, pointing at the table. Lilith followed his point, and snapped her fingers, transporting the boxes and book off of it in an instant.
"Not at all." She replied. "What're you planning?"
"Destroying it." Raylix remarked, raising his pointing hand and opening his hand out towards the table. Lilith nodded, taking half a step back, figuring she could always bring another table down here once she and Raylix were finished up.
Raylix expected the familiar crimson and black energy to burst from his hand and reduce the wooden table to splinters. He'd used his mother's power… probably hundreds of thousands of times throughout his centuries of existence so far, so it was the safest thing possible to say that he knew how it worked, and what he expected to happen when he called upon it.
But today had been a day for expectations being subverted, it seemed, as the familiar sphere of obliteration that Raylix was attempting to form didn't come. Visible crimson and black energy joined Raylix and Lilith in the chamber, yes, but it didn't expand or burst outward: instead, it condensed inward, forming what looked like a small, rotating singularity.
It wasn't the Power of Destruction, that was for sure… or at least, not entirely. That familiar crimson and black energy had come out, alright, but the singularity it had formed into rather than an orb to be fired at the table like Raylix was going for… it looked more like one of the voids that formed whenever Raylix called on Amalgmation, than anything else.
Raylix glanced over at Lilith, whose expression told him quite plainly that she was just as confused about what was going on as he was. Though her eyes had shifted over to the centre of the singularity in Raylix's hand, and when Raylix followed her gaze, he noticed the same crimson and black energy floating, swirling in the centre.
"So, is it like… a combination of them, or something?" Raylix broke the silence, closing his hand and dispelling the singularity.
"I think so." Lilith replied. "Looked like it to me. A synthesis of Destruction and Amalgamation… I didn't expect that."
"Me neither." Raylix shook his head and sunk back down onto the sofa. "I'm confused."
"I guess that makes both of us." Lilith sank down beside Raylix, offering him a smile as she looked over. "But don't worry, Raylix. Whatever's going on here, we- the pair of us- can work it out. Together."
Raylix nodded, letting out a breath. He opened his hand, bringing up another one of the singularities within it for a few seconds before closing his hand, dispelling it.
"Yeah, I'm sure we can." He replied. "But I think we both need a drink first."
Line Break
Everyone was thankful for the soundproofing spells placed in and around the URF headquarters' main training hall, or else they'd be hearing rhythmic, deafening clashes all day, every day, like was going on now between two of the faction's strongest members.
Hikari let out a mixture between a groan and a laugh as she was thrown down to the hard ground after a clash with Raylix. Rather than try and stop right at that spot, she let herself bounce, roll away from a spear- a morphed Rubilacxe thrown by Raylix, that landed right at the spot she had been a couple of seconds ago- before jumping back to her feet and returning to the air on a pair of white Dragon wings with energy 'feathers'. Extending out one of her hands, several dozen bolts of dark energy flew out of it towards her opponent.
Raylix, in turn, extended both his hands. The air in front of him seemed to warp slightly as a dark-red singularity span into existence between him and Hikari, which her dark energy-bolts slammed into and vanished without so much as a sound.
"Damn." Hikari muttered, rolling her head around her shoulders as the singularity between her and Raylix vanished, and she watched him wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of the t-shirt he was wearing. "Still not used to that!" she called out, across the arena. "It's just unfair, you know."
"That's pretty rich, coming from the woman that can sap the power of anyone they touch." Raylix retorted.
Rolling her eyes, Hikari's shimmering dragon-wings flapped once, and she sped towards Raylix, dodging under the singularity he threw up as an attempt at defence before grabbing one of his legs, pulling him in for a quick punch to the face before throwing him straight to the ground. Raylix spread his wings in an attempt to halt his sudden descent, before he cast a quick teleportation-circle to redirect his momentum away from the ground, but backwards away from his silver-haired opponent.
As Albion's deep tone called out "Divide!" from Hikari's wings, Raylix felt himself wincing as he felt another chunk of his energy leaving him. That had to have been three or four times Hikari had sapped his power now: power that she wasn't even using, he noticed, as her wings shimmered from the energy she was letting out.
"Like you said…" he spoke, sounding slightly winded. "Unfair. That would've worked, too, had Destruction come out. Guess I just forgot that this is what comes out now." He raised a hand, summoning a singularity to his hand for a couple of seconds before dissipating it.
Hikari rolled her eyes, jokingly opening and closing her hand in a gesture that told Raylix she was tired of the talking, which he sighed in response to while stretching.
"Alright. Time." He called out. "I'm calling this."
"Aww." Hikari dropped down to the ground, her wings dissipating as she gave him a mildly disappointed look. "Had enough already?"
"Haven't built up a good enough tolerance to getting my power sucked out of me like that." Raylix replied. "You should ask Lilith for pointers, I think she'd be happy to help. Also… I'm getting hungry."
Hikari snorted, throwing a playful punch at Raylix's shoulder, which he dodged. Laughing, the pair of them made their way out of the training hall, turning right towards the stairs and headed towards them. As they began making their way down, passing Esdeath and Katerea as they made their way up, Hikari stretched a bit herself as she looked over at Raylix.
"So I'm guessing taking Unholy Genesis in a few days ago went alright." She remarked. "Judging by how you aren't, you know, being taken over by the spirit of the original Devil, or whatever."
"I guess so." Raylix replied. "Your mother told you what happened?"
"Mmhmm." Hikari nodded, shedding her jacket and sending it through a transportation-circle, leaving her only in her v-neck shirt. "Kurumi and me. She seemed pretty happy at how well it went."
Raylix nodded, grinning slightly as he looked Hikari's toned arms- now on full display without her jacket covering them up- up and down, down and up.
"She's not the only one that's happy about it." She remarked. "Dunno how it happened or why, but I'm feeling a lot more streamlined. Internally, that is, and I dunno… I like it."
Hikari hummed, again.
"So I want to ask… what's the plan?" she asked. "I know the history, Lucifer being able to make the powers that the Pillar Clans pride themselves on today, and then refill whatever reserves he used to make said powers via the worship of his own kind. And last time I checked… you aren't him."
Raylix nodded, smirking.
"A fact I'm very proud of." He replied. "But, yeah, that's been on my mind, actually."
As the two of them reached the ground floor of the URF's headquarters, they made their way towards the kitchen. Hikari immediately made for the pantry: opening it, pausing for a second before reaching in and pulling out a cup of ribs-flavoured noodles. Raylix, as soon as he saw what Hikari had gotten, reached over and flicked the kettle as he moved over to the fridge, opening it.
"I did have one idea." He continued, with his back to Hikari. "Of how to replenish my reserves. Wouldn't exactly be as neat as how Lucifer did it, but it'd work… maybe."
Hikari raised an eyebrow, reaching into the pot and pulling out a small flavouring sachet, tearing it open and dumping its contents in along with the dried noodles.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah." Raylix turned around, some ham, cheese and a couple of slices of bread in his hands as he shut the door. Moving over to the countertop and laying the ham and cheese between the bread-slices, he continued. "Back when I was… had to have been around your age, maybe a bit older, during the Devil Civil War, I came up with a technique for Amalgamation- you know, when I still had it as I was born with- to help me in battles of attrition. Instead of taking an ability fired at me to send back at them, I could take the power behind magical attacks- you know, the actual energy that fuelled it, that you oh-so-kindly sapped out of me earlier?"
"All's fair in love and sexually-charged play-war." Hikari replied, reaching over to grab the kettle as it finished boiling. As she poured some of the boiling water into the pot she'd opened, she gestured with a free hand for Raylix to continue.
"Anyway." Raylix rolled his eyes. "In the short term, it worked as intended. Used my opponents to outlast my opponents, it probably wouldn't be a stretch to call me damn-near unbeatable in a long-term fight. But in the longer term…" he rubbed the back of his neck after finishing setting up the ham and cheese in a sandwich. "A… a friend suggested that I could try fusing any energy- that foreign energy from other opponents- with my own reserves once the fighting was done."
Pulling the cover of the pot over its opening and setting it to one side, Hikari looked over at Raylix, catching his short pause.
"One of the ones that died, right?" she asked, her voice slightly softer. "During your engagement to the Phenex Heiress?"
"…Yeah." Raylix replied, turning away from Hikari while reaching up and rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve, before turning around. "I gave it a go, and it worked… to a degree. There were a couple of big problems that stopped me from doing it as often as I'd really have liked to. During fights themselves, when I was able to take power from opponents at all, I'd be drawing from that power to fuel my attacks. That's the whole reason I was able to win so many battles of attrition in the first place. More often than not, there wasn't even much left to boost myself with."
Hikari nodded, watching Raylix pick the sandwich he'd made up with both hands, one palm laid over the top (or bottom) of each bread-slice, before sending a low-powered fire spell through it, flash-toasting the bread, melting the cheese and heating up the ham. It was a crude job, considering how bits of the crust looked slightly blackened by his work, but judging by the appreciative hum at his own handiwork Raylix let out when he took a bite out of the toastie he'd made, it seemed to have worked.
"So, you could only gain power in small increments?" she asked. Raylix nodded, swallowing his mouthful of toastie.
"REALLY small, relative to what I was already born with." He replied. "But I mean, gotta try something to catch up with the smiling freak of nature that calls itself my big brother. Not all of us can be born with the soul of a Dragon I helped kill inside them."
Hikari snorted, shaking her head. From somewhere inside her, even though he didn't hear her mouth move, Raylix thought he could hear a deep grumbling about how he 'didn't really do anything', but chose to ignore it.
"And even then, it wasn't exactly easy." Raylix continued. "Hours, upon hours, of focused meditation, big time-sink for small reward. I remember Ajuka theorizing that it might be due to being one of the few Devils born with multiple Clan abilities, that might have interfered with it."
"But now you, for all intents and purposes, have one ability now." Hikari replied. "You're feeling 'streamlined'."
"It's really the best way I can think to describe it." Raylix shrugged. "So, I dunno. With that in mind, it might be worth giving another go. I mean, can't exactly do it through contracts without confirming I'm still alive. And as fun as sex is, having to use it to literally gain power sounds like a recipe for boredom, so asking Lilith to Incubus-ize me is out of the question."
Hikari shrugged.
"That's fair." She replied, opening the pot and grabbing a fork from a nearby drawer, before sitting down at the table and tucking into her meal. Raylix did the same, just across from her, and continued eating his own toasted sandwich. Though a couple of bites in, he looked up and spoke again.
"I wanted to ask you as well, Hikari…" he paused for half a second, before continuing. "Who are you, really?"
His tone wasn't anything close to accusatory, more curious and measured than anything else.
"I know you're adopted, like Kurumi." He continued after a second, once he'd got Hikari's attention. "That, and the fact that silver hair isn't a common enough natural colour in the human world for you to be Lilith's biological daughter, even if I didn't know that you were adopted."
Hikari blinked, noodles-filled fork halfway to her mouth for a couple of seconds before depositing it back into the pot, letting out a small scoff.
"How observant of you." She remarked. "But, to be honest, yeah. You deserve to know. I might not be Lilith's daughter, but I'm still biologically related to her: I'm her great-granddaughter."
Raylix raised his eyebrows for a couple of seconds, before closing his eyes and nodding.
"Right." He replied. "That's around what I was guessing, given how young you seemed to be. So how'd you end up coming to live with your great-grandmother, if you don't mind me asking?"
Hikari opened her mouth, hesitated, closed it. Raylix blinked, before raising his hands.
"You don't have to say, if it's super-personal or anything." He spoke. "If there's bad memories or anything, I don't want you-"
"It's not that." Hikari cut across Raylix, with a breath. "I just wanted to make sure I don't lose it while loredumping on you. Or that you don't, you've probably had enough for a while."
"Eh, what's one more?" Raylix asked, shrugging and allowing himself a small chuckle.
Hikari returned the gesture, shovelling another forkful of flavoured noodles into her mouth, chewing for a bit and swallowing before speaking up again.
"My mother- biological, mother- was human." She spoke. "I was born a half-Devil on my father's side, Lucifer's grandson. You've probably met enough descendants of the old Satans outside of Katerea and me to guess how he probably was."
"A prick?"
Hikari let out a humorous snort, one quite dark in tone if such a thing was possible.
"That's putting it mildly." She remarked. "He had… issues. Lots of issues. Starting with when it was discovered that I was born with a Sacred Gear, along with my obvious potential that being a descendant of the near-literal God of Devils would bring. That was already for him to resent me, his own goddamn daughter, for existing, and that only got worse when we found out exactly WHICH Sacred Gear got dropped into my half-human soul."
"One of the thirteen strongest Sacred Gears to ever exist." Raylix replied. "Talk about winning the lottery at birth."
Hikari responded by raising her free hand and slowly, deliberately, curling one of her fingers in a 'monkey's paw'-like gesture, that elicited a small chuckle from Raylix.
"Things… got worse from there." She continued, returning her hand to the table. "That resentment got upgraded into downright hate, which got aimed squarely at both me, and my mother whenever she tried to step in and stop him, or at the very least help me not hurt as bad. I don't know what he was aiming to try and do with that course of action, maybe just mentally break me into serving whatever goals he had as Lucifer's grandson?"
"Somehow that wouldn't surprise me." Raylix replied, raising his eyebrows for a couple of seconds again.
"But whatever his goal was," Hikari let out a slow breath. "Unless it was getting me to blow up in his face after one beating on Mom too many, cripple him and run away, he definitely failed, and I ran. I don't even remember how long I was on the move, just that I didn't stop. Didn't matter where I went or what I did, everyone seemed to either want to use me or kill me. Fallen Angels, Asgardians, fellow Dragons… anyone."
Raylix frowned, setting down his toastie.
"Damn." He muttered. "Guess you and Kurumi've both had it rough."
"That's putting it VERY mildly." Hikari replied. "We also both almost died, though it was a group of Angels that almost did me in rather than my own Sacred Gear almost killing me. Guess they thought it'd be good on their heavenly résumés, offing a descendant of their greatest ever enemy. Though even if they didn't, the cold of the mountain that I ended up fighting them on combined with my fatigue would have."
"Given how you're talking about it, I'm guessing that's when Lilith found you." Raylix remarked. Hikari nodded, leaning back in her chair a bit.
"Yup. Went down in the cold, woke up in that human-world villa you turned up at with your girlfriends a few months ago, and that was that: for all intents and purposes, Lilith's my mother now. Taught me to fight properly, helped me learn about and hone Divine Dividing as well as my own demonic power, even gave me a new name, which… helps, with separating how things are now than… than before."
Raylix swallowed the last of the toastie that he was chewing up as Hikari talked. After a second's pause, he got up, moved around the table and sat down next to Hikari rather than across from her. He quietly reached out an arm and gently wrapped it around her side, pulling her a bit closer to him.
Hikari letting out a soft gasp, in almost exactly the same way as Lilith had done as he hugged her in the shower while she told of some of her past, didn't go unnoticed by her step-father-to-be.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." He spoke. "For what you went through."
"Eh, don't be." Hikari replied, gently pulling away from Raylix, picking up the pot and raising it to her lips, downing its remaining contents in a couple of gulps. Reducing it to nothing in her hand with a quick pulse of demonic energy, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, turning towards him. "You didn't do any of that shit, you've got nothing to apologize for."
"Yeah, I really should stop doing that." Raylix remarked, letting out a chuckle. "Just don't know what else to say when it comes to stuff like this."
Hikari shrugged.
"Then don't say anything?" she suggested, resting a hand on Raylix's thigh. "Or just try to think of something else to say?"
Raylix blinked.
"Does asking what your first name was count?" he asked. "Before Lilith renamed you, you mentioned that. Guess I'm curious about that too."
A short giggle escaped Hikari, and she shook her head slightly.
"That's a hell of a subject-shift, but I guess it does count." She replied, pausing for a second before continuing, a smirk playing around her lips. "Tell you what: you beat me in a fight- a REAL fight, no holding back on either side- and I'll tell you."
Raylix let out a breath as Hikari's hand made it a little bit further up his thigh.
"You drive a hard bargain, don't you?" he asked, before rolling his eyes. "Deal."
"Seems that's not the only thing that's hard, though." Hikari spoke, her voice dropping to a half-whisper as her hand travelled still further up Raylix's thigh, settling in his crotch. Before Raylix could even look down after mentally registering where it was, Hikari had undone his pants, with the only thing left between her lover's cock- which was, as she'd observed, hard- and the open air being the pair of boxers he had on, which were straining slightly. "Hey, you know how the idea of a good battle gets me. And I still want to get Kurumi to walk in on us at least once before you and Mom tie the knot~"
"Yeah, she has been sweeping you in that regard." Raylix replied, rolling his eyes as a slightly shaky breath escaped Hikari's throat, and he noticed the lust in her eyes as she unbuttoned his boxers and freed his cock, while shifting off her chair and onto his lap. "What the hell, sure."
The soft moan he let out as Hikari laid her hand on the bare skin of his member was muffled slightly by Hikari pressing her lips against his.