NOVEL NEXT Chapter Three Hundred Seventy Six
"You have a lot of guts coming here like this." With the words came a tide of power, pushing back the aura of the two B-rankers through his own and with sheer force of personality. Zeke wasn't worried at all, and it showed in the way he spoke. "You might not worry about some small time scuffle between the Unity and the Cult, but there are other interests here."
The redhead didn't seem worried (apparently he was as crazy as all the other cultists I'd met). "You won't get involved, but in case you did, we arranged some entertainment for you. Finding out there was an unknown B-ranker on the planet was an annoyance, but luckily, we managed to get the details from a reputable source. Isn't that right Miss Selka?" His smug grin turned to take in where I could see Natalie sitting.
The teal haired woman next to her, clearly her own guardian, rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to start trouble, Kix. I'm a neutral party. As long as my charge remains safe I'm not obligated to take a side, and while Natalie might think an alliance with her cousin is best, I'm not nearly so convinced."
It occurred to me that while Nat might be aware that Zeke was B-rank, and even knew his name, she hadn't passed the latter bit of information on to her guardian. Apparently the lack of trust ran in both directions, she and her guardian clearly had a much different relationship than we did.
Zeke looked mildly annoyed at the woman, but not upset. "Selka. That sounds familiar." He was talking normally now, as were the others, but with the Perception of everyone here and the cameras, it didn't seem to be a problem for anyone. He snapped his fingers. "Ricardo's daughter. Your mother is that little Countess with the teleportation power. The hair should have tipped me off. Surprised someone from Malachai's branch contracted you as a guardian, given how much he and your grandmother hate each other."
She glared at him. "Inter branch cooperation is important. Grandma knows that. And no REAL Wyndham would ever violate the sanctity of the candidate selection. Not that some random's pet B-ranker would know that." Wow...apparently Nat hadn't told her guardian ANYTHING about me. Maybe Zeke's little jab about branch politics wasn't that far off.
My cousin was pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Neither of us were in danger, granted, but it hardly made her guardian being a shady asshole any less mortifying. Zeke just looked unperturbed. "It's always so cute when the little ones make plans. I assume you realized that the location and importance of this planet made it a prime target for annexation and decided to arrange this to both get rid of my ward and advance your own?"
"Pretty much." She said with a shrug. It would be suicide to attack you, and bad form even if I survived, but this way my hands stay clean and I make a nice profit. I'm not defecting or anything, but unlike you I have no obligation to protect your candidate."
Zeke just smiled wryly. "I'm guessing you don't know who he is? Or who I am? Because while a pair of mid to upper B-rankers would be sufficient for most, I assure you I can handle myself just fine. Tell you what, since I don't dislke ambition, I'll give you a chance. Help me take care of the rabble while I deal with thug one and thug two and I'll let you slink off after this without doing anything drastic."
She just snorted. "Drastic? You think you can take on a pair of nearly peak Arch-Bishops and you'll still be alive to hurt me? Everyone knows the cultists are hell to kill off, and in pairs they're more than a match for anyone their rank. Crazy bastards will self destruct if they think they're losing. Outnumbered you have no shot."
Sighing, Zeke shook his head. "Come on, don't be stupid here." He reached into his coat and pulled out and old, brittle looking mask. "I don't have a teleportation volto mask anymore. My last one broke. Unless you were planning to spend the remainder of your life with your soul trapped in porcelain I'd take the offer." He held up the mask in the air beside him, then released it, leaving it hanging in the space he left it in. Under the mask, a form manifested, a black robe too dense to see a shape. "Besides." He said with a bloodthirsty smile. "Who said I was outnumbered."
Snapping his fingers, a bag appeared, a large black duffel. He unzipped it and started to remove masks, leaving them hanging in the air. Under each mask a robed figure manifested, each one floating up and away to take position around us in the air in a formation. Selka's eyes went wide with terror as she stared at Zeke, then down at her candidate in an expression of fearful dismay.
"I...I didn't know." She stuttered. "I swear, I didn't know. I wouldn't have contacted them if I had." Zeke just looked at her calmly, and she swallowed, standing and bowing. "Not a single cultist will remain on this planet by the time you finish." She said formally, and then, suddenly, she was gone.
Amusingly, she had NOT informed her former allies who Zeke was, though she clearly figured it out herself. Clearly we were far enough from wherever Zeke usually did his thing that random B-rankers didn't know who he was, because the hooded figures didn't back down, and Kix (who was an E-ranker actually) hadn't heard of him either.
The redhead's ever present grin had slipped, replaced with an annoyed scowl. "Bitch." He snapped. "I'll let their excellencies deal with her after they finish with you. Your brat has been responsible for the deaths of several of our operatives, including a promising young talent here to attend the tournament. He needs to pay, and since we're here anyway, we can just send a few messages all at once."
Zeke smiled. "Really? I thought you guys had found out his mother is the Star Queen and decided to enforce that shitty blood feud you nutcases have with those stuffed shirts at the church." At the shocked expression Zeke put on a faux embarrassed face. "Oh no, did I say that out loud? Now everyone knows. Of course, once they see what I'm about to do to your little buddies I don't expect they'll find the risk worth it."
I'd been shocked when Zeke blurted that out, but now I got it. People would learn about my mom eventually. But since he was in a position to fight them personally and make an impression, he'd thrown out the information himself. Now when he butchered the cultists two to one everyone would see it, and anyone who thought about getting to mom through me would think twice. Anyone B-ranked that is. But I doubted an A-ranker would bother. They could just attack her head on. and that wouldn't offend one of the biggest factions in the universe.
I was low ranked and part of a competition, them attacking was technically within the scope of that since Zeke was here to protect me. If they started moving out Saints and Popes to kill me it would literally just be declaring war on the WCP, and the Church would sure as hell jump in on the other side.
Kix, meanwhile, was turning red, his face looking like he'd had an aneurysm. "H-heretic! How dare you protect a heretic? That bitch has killed more of our Saints than any ten A-rankers in the entire church, and the Radiant Pope murdered our Saintess of the Drowning Shade, our Lady's own flesh and blood daughter!"
Zeke rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, that happened before he even broke through to S-rank. None of us were even alive. Besides, Drowning Shade was a psychopath, even by Ascendant standards. I've met serial killers lost in full recursion that weren't unstable enough to have spawned some of those stories."
The redhead was shaking like he was going to explode. "YOU DARE!" He screamed, his voice cracking. "Defaming our lost Saintess, speaking ill of our Lady's bloodline. Crimes! Crimes against the Cult! Blasphemy! Heresy! Sacrilege! You'll die for this. You and your brat and every person you've ever met!"
"See." Zeke said turning to me. "This is why no one likes dealing with Cultists outside strict mercenary assassination contracts. One wrong word and they turn into a gibbering lunatic." Looking back at the other man he clicked his tongue. "Also, heresy is the holding of an opinion counter to a religious precept, and usually carries the assumption of being a heretic, and heretic's can't by definition, blaspheme, which is defined as 'showing contempt for god or sacred things'. Can't hold contempt for something you don't believe exists."
Before the redhead could retort, he held up a hand. "Don't mistake me, I know Black Sorrow is real. I'm just making the point that you're contradicting yourself here. Regardless, this whole fight is deeply inconvenient to me. I don't have the materials to make two more B-rank masks. I'll have to seal your souls until I can make a shopping trip to get the materials for a porcelain that can contain them." He shrugged. "Oh well, doesn't matter I suppose. Any artist would be glad to have a new canvas to work with."
The two Arch-Bishops, predictably, didn't take this threat well, but before they could do more than step forward, Zeke snapped his fingers. Two of the masks began to glow, the hooded manifestations under them vanishing and appearing around the ring. A third gestured and the remaining contestants were subsumed in suddenly liquid earth, then spat out off the now self repaired stage. The two figures raised their arms and a cube of glasslike energy appeared, then shifted as the second masked figured warped the energy, creating a defensive perimeter.
Zeke took a step, vanishing and appearing inside the ring with the three cultists, while all the other robed figures, seven of them in total, drifted through the shield as if it wasn't there to join him. Smiling grimly, he reached into the bag again, withdrawing one last mask, then snapped his fingers to dismiss it as he raised the porcelain to his face.
As the mask covered him, I felt a sort of...shift, in the air. Zeke's body language changed, like someone throwing off an old cloak. Perception was important, and he was making no effort to hide the differences. His stance screamed aggressive and sadistic, and even the two hooded Arch-Bishops had stepped back, clearly realizing that they had picked a fight with someone with whom wise men did not fuck.
The floating robed figures had spread out to surround the enemies, slipping the edges of the ring to create a second line of defense. Zeke cracked his neck. "Oh dear, this one is always so bloodthirsty. Perhaps I should have used one of the others." He shrugged. "Oh well." He flickered, appearing in the middle of the B-rankers, right behind Kix, and shoved an arm THROUGH his chest. "Too late now."
The two B-rankers whirled, one bringing to bear that black energy and the other releasing a red lightning in a massive cloud of power that literally turned the shield into a box seething black with red sparks through it. When the energy faded, Zeke was back in his original spot, safely behind a line of defense erected by his masks. There was no evidence at all of the attack, since Kix's body was obliterated by the other B-rankers.
Zeke just clicked his tongue. "Killing your own subordinates. How gauche. Especially since he would have been fine." Their fists clenched and he cocked his head. "What? Did you think I actually attacked him? Didn't you hear me earlier? I don't have a teleportation mask." He flicked a hand and a perfect copy of him appeared to one side, high fiving him before vanishing. "But we've had enough fun for now. Let's get started." And with a snap of his fingers, both he and all his mask bearers disappeared.