[hider=Apophis Intro]Within Elaniel lay a desolate area nearby where Athalia Academy had once stood. Nothing but dirtied structures stood still, the entrances of the location blocked off with large magic barriers. Small patches of grass stuck out of several cracked cement roads, dust painting the place. A hundred demon soldiers-in-training stood at guard in front of the entrance to a subway. For quite a while, nothing big in particular had happened in Hell. Everyone trained by a harsher routine to prepare for a potential war with the outside world. Lucifer demanded all soldiers to give more than their “everything” to his cause, stating that their efforts were required to take over the surface at the right moment. So when the hundred soldiers were called out so suddenly, they naturally felt tense. They were given the order to enter the surface of Lavanya given by Thane himself. Judging by his grave expression, the intention behind their formation was not the most pleasant one. They all noticed that they had one thing in common, for they all knew each other. And that alone made them come up with all sorts of assumptions that had a high chance of being the case. Emerging from the subway, Apophis, the Deity of Chaos, revealed himself. Everyone froze. “Hello,” he said with his eternally mad grin. No one said anything. They had heard of something like the situation they were in happening before. From what they remembered, it did not end that well. Apophis’ presence only deepened their suspicions. “So you all might be wondering why you’re out here,” Apophis said, motioning at the broken buildings around them. “Why you’re in this… desolate place, waiting for further orders. “I will be clear about this. Now, listen.” The red-haired deity took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he tasted the air. It did not taste thick enough for his liking. Opening his eyes, Apophis’ smile widened. “As of recent events, there have been some… traitors to our cause,” he explained, taking several steps towards the hundred-man group. “A week ago, we picked out two hundred- yes, [i]two hundred[/i] soldiers who were suspected to have participated in a plot to destroy us. “Needless to say, we’re still here, so we can only presume that they’re all dead. I, myself, was not present in their execution, unfortunately. Because I hate people who do not faithfully follow their words, you see. “I hate them so, so much.” The soldiers tensed up as he approached them slowly, his arms open loosely as he continued, “So I have brought all of you out here with unfortunate news. You have all been labelled as [b][u]traitors.[/u][/b] Closer surveillance on our soldiers have led us to believe that all of you have decided to participate in an act of betrayal. “Am I wrong?” They all froze deathly still. The soldiers’ eyes were wide open, all of them struck in fear. “…I’m not wrong, huh…” His head hanging down, the deity sighed, closing his eyes. “It’s sad, really. You all are [b][i]elite soldiers[/i][/b] picked out by the King of Hell himself. Do you know how disgraceful that is? It’s almost… immature. To bite the hand that feeds you. “I did not watch you grow, but Thane, Idolon… the officers of Hell all- excluding me- have watched you gain experience within our ranks. They watched you grow, thus increasing your own potentials to let us win the war. But you have decided to take a strange and misguided path, and it’s a path that you, unfortunately, cannot return from.” Silence took over. The soldiers glanced at each other. Mages, warriors, and soldiers who had unique powers felt their blood pressure rise as Apophis rambled on. “So I will give you a chance,” Apophis said, standing still as he remained idle. “If you kill me, I will let you go. You will have your way, and there won’t be another Apophis chasing after you. “Of course, I won’t be just waiting for you all to kill me. It’s a good deal that way, right?” At first, the demon soldiers remained still. They kept exchanging glances, communicating with their eyes and visible emotions. They all shared the expression of fear. A few seconds later, they all drew their weapons. “…Well, I expected less forwardness from you all,” the Deity of Chaos admitted. “I guess it just shows how the mighty can fall.” Reaching for his back, the skin-wearing deity grasped the handle of a golden blade- the Encircler. He unsheathed it, letting its frame reflect the blue skies. As he brought the blade to waist level, the demon rebels-in-disguise took a few steps away from him, armed for an inevitable battle against the deity. With a swift kick of his feet, Apophis dashed towards the demons with his blade raised by his head horizontally. A stream of fireballs, a storm of lightning, a blizzard of deathly cold ice, and multiple ruptures of the ground headed straight towards Apophis as he approached the demons. Leaping forward, he propelled himself off of the ground, flipping wildly in the air as he threw himself towards the demon rebels. As he landed, the deity of chaos cleanly sliced a mage in half, letting his blade slam against the ground before he picked himself up and kicked one of the pieces at one of the rebels. The red-haired officer of Hell ducked and dodged a battle axe swung at his head as he slashed at a swordsman without giving a chance of retaliation. The rebels all began to disperse, realizing that his presence directly amongst their group had easily disoriented them. One strike and another, Apophis clutched his golden blade as he swung wildly, deflecting attacks sent by some of the more brutish rebels. He slashed again and again before abruptly pulling back, raising his weapon by his head before charging forward, depriving the two warriors of their legs as he cut them apart. Before they landed, he twisted his body before letting his gold tear through the flesh of their necks. As soon as he dealt with the brutes, he turned quickly and smashed away a fireball sent at his direction. The deity of chaos leapt forward, landing with his hands as he propelled himself to the air, twisting his body as he fired a thin line of dark matter at a group of mages. The line went straight through several of their brains, sticking inside of their heads for a split moment before Apophis forcefully tore away the line out of them. He did not stop his assault in the air right there. As a group of longsword-wielders tried to dice him simultaneously, he twisted himself forward as he swung out a blade. The three grey swords clashed against the lonely gold blade, and Apophis remained still in the air, his body upside down as he held onto the blade, for one flat second. He grinned at their utterly confused expressions as he twisted himself and his sword, taking the swordsmen by surprise as they stumbled away. As he landed, he coated the Encircler with dark matter before he spun towards the ground. His blade, extended by the dark matter that had solidified itself as he diced the three men apart. Picking himself up immediately, he caught a stab that came from a heavily armored rebel’s lance with a hand. With the tip of the lance right in front of his eye, Apophis pulled at the lance, dragging the large rebel towards him. The deity of chaos kicked the rebel in the stomach as he pried the lance straight out of his hands before stabbing the demon in the head, letting chunks of the rebel’s life splatter against the men and women behind him. Screams echoed down the desolate area. But no one heard their cries of fear aside from himself. Truthfully, Apophis did not rely on the Encircler when he fought seriously. But the elite so-called-soldiers were far out of his league, and even the weight of the Encircler was not enough to give him a big-enough disadvantage the traitors could use against him. A woman with a warhammer roared as she charged forward as she swung her heavy weapon straight at his head. His eyes darting towards her, he stepped to the side and caught the long handle of her weapon before pulling himself under the hammer. With a mighty pull, he swung himself up and caught a hold of her head, snapping her neck with a perfect turn of his hand. Using his momentum as a weapon in itself, the deity of chaos let himself be propelled towards the group of mages he had not completely finished off earlier. One by one, they fell like bugs making contact to bug spray. He did not even need to use the golden blade to kill them; swift attacks from his own body let him kill them quickly. The deity of chaos kicked a mage across the face before dashing forward, letting a fist tear right through a feminine lightning mage’s chest. It seemed that she got a heart attack from his gracefulness, for she had given him his heart in the most literal way possible. With a grasp on a bleeding heart, the red-haired officer swung the lightning mage towards a fire mage that had been preparing a spell as he rushed over to an ice mage that had been trying to disrupt his movements. He slammed his knee against the mage, who gasped for air, before slamming the heart into the mage’s open mouth. Apophis threw out a swift uppercut, letting the mage’s teeth slam against each other as both his tongue and the heart’s blood flow with each other like wine being spilled across a table. The battle was incredibly one-sided from the beginning to the end. A duel between one of the strongest among the group ended within a manner of seconds, the elite swordsman having his spine ripped out by the deity of chaos. With a weakly connected structure of bloody bones in one hand and the Encircler in the other, he dodged the punches and complicated footwork of a martial artist before swinging the spine at her, letting the bloody skull shatter upon impact. He made short work of her by letting his blade slide through her neck like butter before kicking it towards more foes that dared to approach him. A chain ball did not stop him. He leaned away from an iron ball and caught the chains, pulling its wielder towards him before he punched the rebel to the ground. Apophis pulled at the chains and swung the iron ball to the skies before letting it obliterate the entirety of the rebel’s upper body. Before he went on to slaughter more of the traitors, a particularly annoying mage came out and used glyphs against him. He felt his body stiffen as she attempted to keep him in place. The rebel was fairly powerful and quite experienced with his glyphs. It was a shame that he had seen too much of the particular magic before. The deity of chaos forcefully tore his hands out of the movement-restricting magic, horrifying the glyph user as he set up glyphs of fire. Streaks of fire blasted towards the deity of chaos. Apophis slid under the streaks and forcefully stuffed his hand into the glyph mage’s throat, squeezing his hand as he let blood squelch out of the man’s neck before he tore his hand out. Dropping something that came out of the traitor’s throat, he turned to the remaining forty rebels. All of them had a look of fear in their eyes. It made him feel nostalgic. Everything, from their expressions of despair to their fear of death, was identical to the creatures he had slain throughout centuries. He snorted before snickering. And then his carved smile grew wider, his eyes leaving behind a glowing trail of red as he approached the group, who now backed away from the deity of chaos with great haste. His Encircler had its gold go through a temporary paint job, and his left hand- the darker colored of his hands- had suddenly gained a color quite similar to his other hand. Red. Without a word, he let the remaining rebels scream and cry as the sound of flesh being torn apart became less and less frequent. Soon, there was nothing but the footsteps of a lone man.[/hider] [center][h1][color=ed1c24]Apophis[/color][/h1][/center] Sitting on a throne of eyes, Apophis, the Deity of Chaos, remained still with his eyes shut. The Encircler sat with its clean and golden form by a wall, and his workshop remained dimly lit behind him. Apophis had encountered some sort of “scientist’s block.” Writers were known to have writer’s blocks every once in a while, or perhaps a bit too often. Whenever a writer’s block popped up to aggravate a writer, he or she would be unable to write about almost anything and would be forced to find a way to kill the block. Was it something that could be overcome? Yes. Did people ever enjoy getting over writer’s blocks? No. If someone claimed that he or she enjoyed overcoming writer’s blocks, then such blocks were not actually blocks. Everyone [i]hated[/i] blocks; that was a given. So when Apophis found himself unable to come up with any experiments that satisfied his creativity, he became frustrated to no end. He tried venting it on some prisoners, but they died too quickly. He tried venting it on Thane, but the stupid ninja ended up punching him for talking endlessly about it. And since Idolon and Macbeth were too quiet for what they were, they were absolutely no help in his situation. “I don’t get it… How am I stuck on this?” The red-haired demon growled and shook his head. No, he could definitely come up with an idea. As he leaned forward, he got up from his soft throne of eyes as he walked to his workshop. He could come up with something… [hr] He couldn’t come up with anything. “DAMMIT!” Apophis shouted as he slammed a bloody axe on the red worktable that once had a nice, light brown color to it. “I can’t think of anything! “This is a huge problem…” Leaning over, Apophis let his elbows rest against the table as he clutched his head, staring at the axe in front of him. Being unable to come up with experiments meant that he would not be able to advance his own development. And being unable to advance his own development would mean that there would be a possibility he’d fall behind not only the slow and steady progress of Hell’s officers, but also even the students of Athalia. And that idea in itself was utterly humiliating. Picking up the axe, he rammed the sharp side of the axe against his forehead, letting blood flow out as he screamed, “DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!” He thought that taking out some [i]bad blood[/i] from his brain could solve his creativity block. It turned out it did not work. “This is really, really bad,” Apophis muttered to himself. “I need to do something about this damn block or else I’ll end up being the weakest asshole among the group of asses! Think, Apep, think…” And so, he came up with an idea. [hr] [center][h1][color=fdc68a]Tai Norel[/color][/h1][/center] People told Tai Norel that he was a cure to many diseases. He did not understand why that was the case, but he considered it to be a compliment that helped motivate him. Tai was just a barber, and every day, the demons would tell him that he was doing a good job. And he appreciated their every compliment! The only thing he found strange was the fact that both men and women sometimes stared at him with very fond looks. It was as if they wanted to keep him for themselves or something… Of course, he believed it to be a silly thought. Tai did not belong to anyone. Heck, his parents, though gone, had once told him that. The jingling of bells signified that someone had entered his shop. His long dark ponytail flowing down the back of his neck, the barber’s eyes widened as he smiled brightly. “Welcome!” He said as he stopped cutting the hair of a demon soldier. “How may I-“ Apophis, the most infamous officer of Hell, walked in with an absolutely massive aura and presence as he said, “[color=ed1c24]Gimme a haircut.[/color]” Tai froze deathly still, his smile frozen along with his body. The demon soldier he had been cutting hair for whispered to Tai, “Like, before you possibly leave us eternally, I’d like to point out that I love you.” The soldier was a fair man. Tai could not care any less due to the huge thing that had been thrown into his life. [i]C-Cut… the hair of a warlord?[/i] He thought, frightened to no end. [i]This.. T-This is something new… Please watch over me, mama…[/i] Needless to say, Tai hoped that he would survive and live to see the day his barber business becomes an even bigger success.