The Crimson Tale of Conquest

---Kintris POV---

The Time Goddess watched the scene playing out on Zelviea, on one of the smaller display screens in the Planetary display room. She watched as Ruby Destroyed her hometown. The dark-skinned woman with Golden eye's looked on with interest as Ruby unconsciously summoned fire. Just then her daughter Angelica, the Goddess of Light and Mankind, entered the chamber.

"Something's happening, isn't it?" She declared as she stormed into the room.

The Goddess of light looked a lot like her mother. Contrary to her tittle she wore black clothing with Golden highlights and lining. Her long black hair was tied into a single thick braid and her skin tone was a dark brown.

"I don't know what you mean." Kintris feigned ignorance.

"I was wondering why you would offer to look over things in my place, then it occurred to me something important must be happening with the timeline." Angelica said miffed. She assumed her mother was trying to hide something from her.

Just then the scene changed on the small screen in front of Kintris to show Ruby Carrying her mother. Angelica saw and instantly realized what was happening. The image of the girl on screen made Angelica want to tear her hair out.

"Don't tell me she's about to become another-"

"Don't do anything stupid child." Kintris said cutting her off. "You're still in trouble for the last time you interfered with the world below. Don't anger him again."

"If I didn't give my adorable children that summoning circle the world would be destroyed!" She exclaimed.

"Don't exaggerate. You know that isn't true." Kintris said rolling her eyes. "Things would just be a bit troublesome for a few centuries. That's all. Plus, if it really came to that he would've allowed us to interfere without consequence."

As they spoke Ruby ended her mother's suffering and took her name. Hearing the young woman call herself Lucilla Crimson confirmed to Angelica things were going in the worst possible direction for her charges. Mankind and possible every race will be in trouble just like they were twenty-five-hundred years ago. Thats what she believed at least.

_____________________

Waking up on a grassy field and looking at the bright blue sky above, a Silver haired woman with Crimson eyes, and a scar on her left jaw could be seen. Sitting up the woman surveyed their surroundings. She slowly stood up and made her way over to a short ledge to sit and enjoy the view as she once again experimented with her newfound ability.

Lucilla Ruby Crimson looked at her hand as it switched between her usual pale albino color to a light brown. She was sitting on a small cliff overlooking a large grassy field with burnt and withered trees, and the occasional small crater breaking up the landscape here and there. She was currently on the border between The Holy Theocracy and the Lost Country. The war-torn land making for a bleak view.

The Lost Country, contrary to its name wasn't really lost in the literal sense of the word. In fact, it had a decent population of both Man and Demon kind living together peacefully. Even a few Beast-Folk could be found there. It was only really considered lost since there was no real governing body for the country. The closest thing they have to a government is the Arachne Queen and how she seemed to have claimed the entire country as her territory.

Not that either the Demonic Race or the Angelic race really wanted it in the first place. According to Judieth the country has traded hands between the two so often and so many wars took place on the land it has become nothing more than undesirable. The two capitals built by Demon-Kind and Mankind stood on opposite ends of the country, making it clear this land doesn't truly belong to either side. Leaving their people behind each time to the point they started to see each other as allies. Thus was the fate of a country stuck between the Demon territories and Mankind territories.

Though Lucilla's interest in the country stemmed from the Arachne Queen. She liked spiders and found them cute. So, she can only imagine the whole country was overrun with cute spiders that followed this Queens orders. Judieth did mention that none of the Arachne Queens followers attack people without being threatened first. So, it was relatively safe to travel through the country as long as you didn't do anything stupid. Didn't stop people that didn't live there from freaking out at the thought of giant spiders.

'I want to pet one.' She thought when she spotted one of the aforementioned spiders in the distance.

Still messing with her new ability to change her appearance she decided to extend and retract her black claw-like nails over and over again. This ability to change her appearance slightly came from Yuki. After getting their Mana-Links fixed their bodies stabilized enough to use abilities they weren't able to before. Yuki's demon race of Sollen were apparently capable of doing a very limited version of shape shifting. They couldn't do anything too drastic to change their appearance, but it was enough to hide themselves in public without the need of cosmetic potions now.

On a side note, Yuki was now capable of using magic without chanting and a magic circle like Lucilla.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Someone called out to her from behind as Lucilla started having her hair shift through all the colors of the rainbow.

"... Nothing. Anyway, what do you need?" Lucilla asked as she looked back at Judieth, changing her hair back to its usual Silver.

Judieth stood over her in her usual attire, when they weren't pretending to be Hunters anyway. She wore a black turtleneck sweater with a lab coat over it. Her blue rectangular glasses sat atop her freckled nose as she looked down at Lucilla with brown eyes. Her pants tucked into her brown boots with her Red hair tied back into a messy ponytail.

"Just wondering where you went. Yuki and Morella are inside the Lab, they were wondering where you went." Judieth said with a shrug. "I just volunteered to find you, we have something to discuss, and we didn't want everyone just all over the place."

"Oh. Well, I guess I'll head back then." She said, standing up. She took a second to close her eyes and take a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air and the grass beneath her feet. "Alright, lets go."

-- -- --

"Where were you~!" Exclaimed the pink Demon as Ruby walked into the scarily modern looking room. "I was lonely!"

Now that Yuki has fully healed and was no longer in a laboratory stunting her growth, she now had two pink horns poking out from her bangs. Her heterochromia eyes open wide and teary as the Demon put on a show of pouting. But the new thin tail behind her swaying back and forth showing she wasn't actually sad.

Lucilla smiled faintly looking at Yuki as she gave the room a cursory glance. She didn't really give it much thought before, but since coming here she couldn't help but notice how different the technology level inside Judieth's and Dr. Vancer's laboratories are compared to the outside world. Being here also made her realize that a lot of the technology that is used by the general public is kind of all over the place. There are flying ships using complex magic engines, yet no other form of transportation exists that also uses these engines like they do.

The lighting was the same. These laboratories had these bright florescent white light crystals. While normal people also had light crystals, they gave off a yellow glow that varied in effectiveness, some only barely better than an oil lamp. While Lucilla was pondering this the woman next to Yuki spoke up.

"Stop being dramatic. Anyway dear, we were just discussing whether or not we should go back to Prosperty or somewhere else." Morella said as the blue Nymph drank from a cup of coffee. "We just wanted your input as well."

Morella didn't really change much, she was still very much blue. She still wore her light blue sundress and sandals created from her water magic. Her Oxford blue hair was put up waterfall braid style, with her fin-like ears poking out from underneath.

"I was just outside." Lucilla answered Yuki as she sat down at the table before turning to Morella. "Anyway where would we even go? The only place we're most familiar with is Prosperty... well me and Yuki anyway." She said realizing midway through that Morella and Judieth are much more traveled than her and Yuki.

"I say we head back to Prosperty. It's the only location you have any type of contacts. But we could also go to the Lost country and try to make allies there." Judieth said. "The place is essentially abandoned by the Church and isn't as well monitored as other places. With the Arachne Queen having Zero tolerance for spies and all that."

Pausing for a bit Judieth then added, "It's also the best chance you'll get at making some Demon allies."

"I have no problem going back to Prosperty City," Morella Started, "But I think we should avoid the Empire all together, and that does include the country that split from it too since it's right across the river from Prosperty City. They are very pro Human there. Thanks to the number of vampires that could be found inside their borders they are much more careful with who they allow in towns and cities. The southern countries are a choice we could look into though."

"I don't really care where we go." Yuki said lazily laying her head on the table, as she played with a shadow tendril she conjured. "I'm a little interested in meeting other demons like me. The only problem is I really don't want to run into any spiders."

"Looks like going back to Prosperty is the path we're going on." Judieth said.

"It does appear that way, yes." Morella added.

"I'm good as long as I don't have to deal with any spiders." The young Demon said.

"I guess that settles it then, we're going back to Prosperty." Lucilla declared after everyone spoke up.

"I did tell that girl we would be back in a month. Though I guess I lied since it took nearly a month to just get here. Then we spent a week here."

"Don't worry about that." Judieth said. "The teleportation circle I set up should be finished growing in about a day. So we should be able to make it back to Prosperty soon."

""Grow?"" Lucilla and Yuki asked.

"Yes, grow. As long as you have a Teleportation seed even someone without spacial magic can set up teleportation spots. The magic circle is just there to stabilize the hole in space." Judieth explained, once again going into lecture mode. "Of course you need two seeds and you have to link them together and wait for it to grow, which does take a few weeks." She then sighed before continuing. "That's not even mentioning how difficult it is to even obtain these seeds."

"When did you do this then?" Lucilla asked.

"With Sable of course." She said with a smug smile. "Why do you think they were here ahead of time, I had them set up a safe house in the Prosperty first to plant the first seed before coming here and planting the second one. I did the same for our escape after all, remember we teleported out of the lab."

"You set up a safe house? Why didn't we use that?" Lucilla asked her, surprised.

"Just being cautious. We were new to the city and we're Hunters that did grow up there or have it as our main base of operation." Judieth answered. "It's a normal procedure for Hunters like us to basically live inside an Inn. Having a proper 'Home', if you want to call it that, would be suspicious."

"Not like anyone would've noticed." Yuki said. "Would've been nice to have a place where we could feel a little more secure."

"I'm inclined to agree with Judieth on this one." Morella spoke after taking a sip from her cup. "I much rather be safe than sorry."

"I Honestly don't care that much, we know about it now." Lucilla said before moving on. "I'm going to keep my alias of Ruby the Hunter a bit longer, but I'll also start spreading the name of Lucilla and operate under that as my main personality. We can use your safe house as our main base in the city, while 'Ruby' continues staying inside the Inns."

"You'll need allies." Judieth reminded her.

"I know." Lucilla said briefly giving Judieth a suspicious glare, but quickly it quickly turned neutral before anyone could notice.

Since Lucilla declared her desire to bring down the Church Judieth became weirdly excited and persistent. When they first got here and Lucilla asked if anyone had any ideas of what they should do, Judieth was almost too eager to talk. As a result Lucilla decided to put that stuff off for later, too anxious to follow any plan the Doctor had.

She trusted the bespectacled to a point, much more than she did three months ago. The only problem is she couldn't help but feel this is exactly what she wanted. Judieth's motivation for helping them is still a major mystery to her, but she feels as if she finally caught a gimps of what it might actually be.

"We can try to work with that Vampire." Morella suggested, causing the Demon sitting next to her to frown."

"Do we have too? I'd rather kill her." She said flatly as she sat up. Seeing how her words soured her mood the Water Nymph used her right hand to pet the younger girls head to soothe her.

"Yuki." Giving the Demon a pointed look the Silver haired girl shook her head. "She's probably a very important source of information, we can't just get rid of her like that."

"Coming from the person who squandered multiple opportunities to gain information~." Yuki teased, smiling her mood already better. Morella's petting is surprisingly effective.

"We should also try and get that Sara girl to be more sympathetic to us. If we can somehow get her into power we would have access to a great amount of resources." Judieth added, staying focused on the discussion.

"... Yeah." Lucilla responded, with a slight pause. 'Not that I have actually spoken with her since that night.'

After bringing Sara home after hypnotizing her to stay silent about what she witnessed Lucilla never actually returned. She did tell Sara before leaving that she wouldn't be able to say anything about what she saw because of a spell and left before she could hear a response. She figured it'll keep the girl from freaking out if she ever attempted to speak to anyone about it. Not that it was likely since she was supposedly hypnotized to never even mention it to anyone. Honestly she wasn't sure what Sara thought of her now.

"Well, no need to figure everything out right now. Let's just finish this conversation tomorrow." Lucilla said, done with talking. "Anyway where's Maisy? I have an idea of how I can be in two places at once and I wan't to talk to her about it."

"She's still practicing her teleportation magic." Morella answered.

"Thanks. I'll go speak with her, tell me when Lunch is ready." Getting up she made a beeline to the rooms exit.