DXD: Biokinetic Devil

Julius appeared from a teleportation circle to the base of the Agares Clan, the floating city Agreas. It was one of, if not the biggest attraction of the underworld. A massive floating island that served both as a resort and base of operations for the second most influential devil clan.

He walked through the streets, taking in the sights he hadn't seen in ages. Julius had only come here once before when his mother was still awake. It was a fond memory, the young boy bouncing on his heels as he took in everything. Unfortunately, this second visit was for business and he didn't have the time to look around just yet.

It didn't take him long to locate the building he was searching for. The Hunter Corp symbol stood proudly on a sign in front of a massive complex of buildings; a clock with a pair of devil wings. Julius made his way inside and entered a large open room with a large amount of people bustling about. These were all various devils who were part of the Hunter Corp. They were either members of a peerage looking for training, or mixed-heritage devils looking for a source of income.

It only took him a little while to ask someone where he needed to go. He eventually found his room, which was set up like a dorm, although all the rooms were single occupancy. Once he'd set his stuff down, he heard a knock on his door and opened it to find a man who looked like he was made of rock. He was tall, with broad shoulders and grey skin covered with rocky protrusions.

"Heard you moving in, figured I'd come to see who my neighbor was."

Julius extended his hand, allowing the man to take his hand in a firm grip and shake it. "Julius Mercer." He also noted that when he tried scanning the man's body he realized that his attempt failed completely. It wasn't the same as trying to scan someone stronger than him, but instead, it felt like the man's body itself was resistant to magic. It'd take some experimentation, but he could probably find a way around it eventually.

A broad grin came over the man's face as he introduced himself. "Gandoma Balam. I'm the rook in Sairaorg Bael's peerage."

That explained why he was so resistant to magic. The Balam Clan had innate magic resistance, which was rather interesting. It was one of the clan traits Julius was actually interested in, alongside the Agares' Time.

"I'm a mixed-heritage devil and not part of a peerage."

Julius noted that he was gauging his reaction to hearing whose peerage he was a part of, probably because of Sairaorg's status as a neglected Bael who didn't inherit their family's demonic trait. 

Gandoma seemed to like what he found in his expression because his shoulders visibly relaxed. "Well, I can take you on a tour of the place if you want. It should be about time for lunch as well, so I can show you to the cafeteria."

"Sounds good, I appreciate it."

The two of them made their way through the halls of the Hunter Corp building, while Gandoma pointed out where everything was. Julius came to know where the training grounds and the library were. Eventually, they finally came to a bustling cafeteria. The number of devils in the Hunter Corp wasn't huge, especially with their race's low fertility rate, but there was still something like 20-30 devils there.

The two of them got in a relatively short line and got their food, then made their way to one of the open tables and sat down. Once they'd had a chance to eat, Gandoma took the chance to strike up another conversation.

"So why'd you decide to join the Hunter Corp? Most of us are here to train for our peerages."

"Wanted some real-world experience. I've basically been stuck either in the house or in a hospital learning medicine, so I wanted to actually get the chance to fight," Julius answered, neglecting to mention his desire for live test subjects.

Gandoma barked out a laugh and slammed his fist down on the table. "That's the spirit. Unfortunately, most of the stray devils are small fry who run away as soon as they get reincarnated. It's rare that we get an actual workout against any of them, so most of the time it's sparring with each other that works the best."

Julius nodded along, even if sparring wouldn't suit his research into the Sleep Disease, it would still help him get stronger. He took a glance around the room and noticed two guys walking over to them. He looked past the two of them and saw a pair of girls watching on. One of the girls had short brown hair with red bangs and a mask that covered half of her face. The other was a girl with two buns in her hair, wearing a blue qipao.

"Those are Riser Phenex's rooks. How'd you manage to piss them off already?" Gandoma asked, his tone amused.

"I've got a guess."

Once the two guys had reached them, one of them reached forward grabbed Julius by the coat, and lifted him into a standing position. "It seems you've been upsetting your betters."

Gandoma moved to stand but Julius waved him off. "And doing the bidding of a girl in someone else's harem makes you also my better?"

"Never hurts to get on the good side of the Phenex clan."

Julius grabbed the hand that was holding him up for a moment and in the next second the guy holding him crumbled to the ground unconscious. His friend reacted at that moment, throwing a punch with the enhanced strength of a rook. The punch landed, Julius' general inexperience with fighting and the closeness of the encounter made it easy for it too, but as soon as the fist landed Julius placed his finger on the fist. He made a change to the devil's body even as he slid backward from the force.

He had to grit his teeth for a moment as the rook's strength had broken a rib, but with a thought he was able to heal the injury. Standing up straight again, he looked over at the rook that was staring at him with a triumphant grin. "He's not so tough."

Julius began to grin, which made the rook drop his grin as he began to worry. Before he could say anything, Julius made a sharp whistle and the rook began to scream, collapsing to the ground in pain. His eardrums ruptured and blood began to run out of his ears.

Ignoring the two men at the foot of the table, Julius walked back over to Gandoma and fixed his shirt. "Ready to go?"

"What'd you do to him?"

"Turned his pain receptors way up. That whistle was way worse than a blowhorn in his ear."

The two were about to make their way out of the cafeteria when a voice stopped them. "I'm surprised that you already got into a fight."

Turning towards the source of the voice, Julius was surprised to find Tsubaki stalking toward him. The girl was wearing a skirt with a pair of leggings underneath and a collared shirt, her glasses emphasizing her heterochromatic eyes. 

It didn't take Julius more than a second to figure out why she was there. "Sona sent you to babysit me?" He didn't see any way her timing could be a coincidence, but he'd never really thought Sona would be that worried about him going off to join the Hunter Corp.

When she got close enough she responded, sparing a glance at Gandoma next to him who was watching the interplay. "She thought something like this might happen after what happened at the party. 

Julius took a moment to introduce Gandoma next to him, and Tsubaki greeted him in turn before he looked around the room and saw most of the devils looking at them. The pair of rooks from Riser's peerage looked slightly irritated that their attempt failed and stood up to leave the room.

"Not going to do anything about them?" Gandoma asked.

"Not worth it," Julius said, but Tsubaki knew better after what had happened at Sona's party. He wasn't someone who acted rashly and attacked people who wronged him, instead, he did it in a more subtle way that couldn't be linked directly back to him.

"Just don't do anything that could get you killed, " Tsubaki sternly said.

"Is that concern I hear?"

"I'd rather not bring news back to my king that her friend went and got himself killed," Tsubaki said, adjusting her glasses. "You are surprisingly casual away from the estate."

Julius shrugged, a gesture Tsubaki had never even seen him make. "I'm on even footing with the devils here in terms of status, barring their master's influence. I don't have to be as worried about my behavior as I usually am."

"I'm sure my king would be interested in seeing this side of you."

Julius chuckled. "Yeah, and then she'd lay into me about it."

The trio made their way out of the cafeteria, Tsubaki joining them as they went back toward the dorms. 

"We'll have a group training session in the morning," Gandoma mentioned to the two.

Tsubaki ended up going back to her room, while Gandoma and Julius relaxed in Julius' room and played some video games for the rest of the night before they went to bed.

----

The next day, a large assortment of devils were all present at the training grounds. They were milling about, not particularly organized, with Julius standing next to Gandoma and Tsubaki.

"I heard a rumor that the heir to the Agares clan is here," Gandoma mentioned to the two.

"Any idea why?" Julius asked.

"Nope, but I'm guessing we're about to find out."

At the front of the training grounds, two figures walked through the door. One was a tall, burly man with a long mane of black hair. Julius already knew who this was, as Gandoma had told him earlier about the instructor for the Hunter Corp, Jiemma. He was a reincarnated devil who was part of Lord Agares' peerage.

The other figure was a girl around thirteen, so the same age as Julius, with pale greenish-blonde hair, pink eyes, and a pair of glasses that, when combined with her expression, gave off a cold feeling.

"Fall in, Heiress Seekvaira Agares is here today to check in on how you all are doing, so we're going to be having group training," Jiemma barked out gruffly.

Julius took a moment to observe Seekvaira. There were some similarities to Sona, but while Sona was rather calm and collected, Seekvaira seemed harsh and cold on first impression. All and all, she seemed like the type of person to react harshly to the smallest slight.

Jiemma ended up breaking down that they'd have an exhibition to gauge where everyone was at as far as strength went. Each devil would fight one match, allowing Jiemma and Seekvaira to spectate. Both Gandoma and Tsubaki seemed rather excited at the prospect, but Julius was indifferent. He'd never really fought much and was more focused on his research, but it'd be good to make a good showing so he could be sent out on missions sooner.

The bracket was decided, and the first few matches proceeded. Seekvaira still had yet to say a word, simply observing the group as matches proceeded. Julius noted that only one of Riser's rooks won her fight, the one in the qipao. He was the first of the trio to have their match, so Julius stepped into the middle of the field calmly.

Across from him was a muscular young man around sixteen, with swept-back brown hair. He had a pair of gloves on his hands, belying him as a close combat fighter. Neither said a word as they stood across from each other before Jiemma called out "Begin."

Julius ran forward, closing the distance between the two of them quickly. As long as this devil wasn't too powerful, all he would need was one touch to shut him down. It seemed that he was one of the devils that had been in the cafeteria when Julius had gotten into that fight, though, since he didn't let him make contact and continued to dodge.

Julius' lack of experience began to show as he overextended on a punch and gave the devil an opening, a harsh punch slamming into his side Julius was unable to touch exposed skin due to the gloves, so his body went rocketing back from the obvious rook's strength. 

He recovered quickly, any injury healing immediately as he righted himself and took a deep breath.

'I haven't been in enough fights. My magic is good for when I'm healing, but required contact with skin is too harsh a requirement to have during a fight.'

Julius only had a moment to think over a solution as the devil rushed back towards him, ready to press his advantage. With quick thinking, Julius came up with another method to attack. Instead of trying to alter his opponent's body, he'd instead change his own body to make the fight easier for him.

When the rook closed in on him, his gloved hand came flying towards Julius' face. Julius let the punch hit his face, but he simultaneously altered his heel to give himself better balance. With sturdier footing, Julius wasn't sent flying back from the force of the punch. Instead, his face was bruised before he healed it and readied his counterattack.

Julius altered his hand, causing the nails on his hand to lengthen and harden before he slashed with them. The claw-like nails cleaved through the rook's shirt and tore a bloody line across his chest, which Julius followed up by reaching forward with his other hand and tapping his chest to knock him unconscious.

The fight was called and Julius returned his body to normal while panting from the exertion. It wasn't a particularly impressive showing, but it had helped Julius identify several of his weaknesses in combat.

He needed contact to alter his opponent's body, and he realistically shouldn't rely on being able to just shut someone down with one touch. The stronger someone was, the more resistant they were to direct alterations to their body. Alongside that, his range was a major issue. He needed to come up with a way to extend his range further.

Julius made his way back over to Tsubaki and Gandoma, the latter of which clapped his hand on his shoulder. "Good fight."

"I've got some things to work on. I'm too inexperienced."

"You did well for not fighting very often. I know you spend most of your time in the hospital healing," Tsubaki said. "It'll just take practice. We can spar often to help you get used to fighting."

"Count me in too," Gandoma replied and Julius couldn't help but grin.

"Thanks guys."

He'd never been particularly social, only really interacting with Sona and on occasion Tsubaki since she'd been reincarnated, but it was nice to have them support him. 

After a couple of fights, it was Tsubaki's turn to fight. To Julius' surprise, she actually wielded a naginata as her weapon. He watched as she fought, and it became obvious she'd been training for many years as she wielded the weapon with ease, quickly disabling her opponent.

Gandoma's fight was similarly one-sided, as he'd simply run through whatever the bishop he was matched against through at him and then knocked the devil out.

The rest of the fights eventually ended and Jiemma stood before the group with Seekvaira.

"A lot of you are newer reincarnates or haven't had the opportunity to fight as much. We'll be training extensively before you're allowed to go out on missions outside of the underworld, but you all did decently today," Jiemma said, his voice gruff, but not harsh.

"I expect improvement the next time I come," Seekvaira spoke for the first time since she'd arrived. Much like Julius expected, her voice was cold. "You all represent the Agares Clan, I will not allow incompetency."

"Heiress Agares will be coming twice a month to spectate, so make sure you all are striving to improve," Jiemma finished.

The devils were released for the day, and the trio made their way to the cafeteria for food. Once they sat down, they began to discuss what they planned to do for the rest of the day.

"I want to get some more training done later, but you guys want to play some games in the meantime?" Gandoma asked.

"I have some reports I need to do for my king. My duties have lightened due to being here, but I still have things to attend to," Tsubaki explained.

"I'd like to train, but I need to figure some stuff out first," Julius also declined. "I need to figure out my fight style first."

Tsubaki and Gandoma both nodded at that. They had developed their fighting style already, so they were focused on refinement, but Julius was working from the ground up. The trio split up, and Julius made his way back to his room where he sat down at his desk and took out a notebook.

'Now, how do I go about fighting efficiently.'

The idea he'd had during the exhibition to alter his own body was a sound one, but that was still a close combat method. He wanted to be well-rounded when he fought, but the idea still had some merit for further development.

At the moment, he wanted to figure out how to fix his range issue. He scribbled ideas in his notebook, going over different methods to fix the problem. Eventually, he broke it down into two parts, each one intended to fix his range.

The first was the fix the problem the scanning spell had, in that it required physical contact. If he wanted to make an alteration to something, he would need to be able to scan what he was altering. The first order of business was to work on developing the scanning spell further until he had created something that would let him scan from a distance. The more he considered the idea, the more his thoughts spiraled as he went from simply scanning one target to getting a comprehensive scan all around him.

It would take a lot of time to alter the spell that thoroughly, to the point it was basically an entirely new magic, but Julius was patient. It was possible that this spell would also help him when healing the Sleeping Disease, since a more comprehensive scan may help with finer control eliminating the disease from his mother's demonic power.

The second had to do with the fact that he could only really target one enemy with his magic as it currently was. If he did manage to fix the range on his scanning spell, he wanted a way to quickly deal with multiple enemies one after the other. The idea eventually coalesced into creating a device with a preset aspect of alteration. The ideal form the device ended up taking was a gun he could channel his demonic power through, but that would also take some time to create.

Julius had a direction to work towards, now all it would take is training and time. He had to rush, he didn't know how long his mother had and he needed live test subjects to work on. He'd work himself to the ground if it let him get stronger just a little bit faster, all so he could save his mother.

----

Author's Note:

For those who couldn't tell, Julius is basically developing his fighting style to be a mix of Alex Mercer and Tatsuya Shiba. Close combat he'll fight like Alex Mercer, altering his body to make it a weapon. Long range he'll use a gun and something similar to Tatsuya's magic to destroy people's bodies, but the limitation is the enemy's strength. The stronger they are, the more they can resist his alterations.