Chapter 24. King and Zuriel.

King Griffeth waited patiently in the throne room for the scouting party to return from their mission victoriously. He sat on his throne that was made of all the weapons of Eden's fallen knights with his General, Grimhide, at his side. Griffeth knew of the ship that was spotted entering the storm was a threat to Eden. It was Grimhide himself that suggested sending a daemon party to take it out, despite the backlash of using those horrid creatures that coexisted with them on the island. He hated those creatures with a passion, but he couldn't do anything to get rid of them.

They were the defender's of the great vault hidden deep withing Mount Liberty, but that doesn't mean they were any more important. Outside of that mountain, they were their humble slaves. If they so speak against their Griffin masters, that daemon will be executed on the spot, however. When it comes to combat, they had no equal, but they would never prove it to their masters.

As he waited in the throne room with Grimhide for the status report, a Griffin in light leather armor rushed in through the large double doors like a maniac. The Griffin stopped just in front of his king, panting and huffing like he just ran a marathon. Griffeth wondered why one of his subjects was in such a rush to come speak with him, but that thought quickly dissipated when the Griffin spoke with a worried tone.

“Your, Highness. We have a problem!” he declared as he caught his breath. Griffeth raised a curious brow and nodded for him to continue his message. “On the western shore is a small group of mercenaries heading straight for the city!”

“That's preposterous! No outlander has ever stepped foot on the island in over a thousand years! Especially when we sent an S-Class Daemon and a hunter-killer squad to back her up to take them out in the storm. What proof do you have of this claim, scout?” General Grimhide scoffed indignantly, causing the messenger.

“With all due respect, Sir, but the S-Class Succubus and Corporal Penélope are the only survivors of the encounter and they were taken prisoner,” he replied meekly. Both Griffeth and Grimhide couldn't believe that one of the strongest types of daemon was beaten so easily. There was no possible way that these mercenaries could do such a feat, and without losing a single life. There has to be a wild card helping them out.

“Scout, if I may confirm something with you. According to the reports, the group of ponies was weaker than a group of pups. They couldn't do the feat that you are describing, even if they had a dragon on their side. It's just simply impossible,” Griffeth said with a calm demeanor.

“Well, Sir, hehe. The new report from squad A says that there is, in fact, a dragon on their side, but that's not all. They also said that Princess Luna herself was with them, as well as the new Elements of Harmony bearers, themselves.”

“That...That cannot be!” Grimhide shouted to rebuke that claim while Griffeth kept a straight face. Even though he was fearing for the worst. “Scout, are you sure that this isn't some hoax?!”

“I am sure, General. They have made camp in a clearing just outside of Black Rock village. You can go see for yourself, Sir.” The scout nodded nervously. Grimhide turned towards the King with dour expression encapsulating his face and spoke with a stern tone to the king. “Your, Highness. If these claims are true, then it is our best interests to vanquish them as soon as possible!”

Griffeth nodded in agreement for a moment as he thought of a way to deal with this new found problem. He knew that if these claims were true, then that dragon and Princess Luna was the wild cards. He didn't know if they were being controlled by the Sun Tyrant or something else. The fact that one of them beat one of the strongest breeds of daemon just proves how dangerous they are, and with the bearers of the Elements of Harmony at their side. Fighting them wasn't going to be an option in the long run. For now, it is best to make sure that they aren't puppets and to see if they are here to help.

“I agree, General, however. We don't know what they are capable of or what kinds of weapons they have. For all we know, they are here to join us to take down the Sun Tyrant, or kill us. I don't want to fight something I know nothing about, and if the claims are true. Fighting a demon slayer and an Alicorn is something that I don't want to do.”

“Sire! Even if they are true, we can't risk them learning of our existence. The Sun Tyrant is stronger than she was five hundred years ago. Who knows what she is capable of now! I bet she is using them to kill us all while she sits on her throne torturing the innocent,” Grimhide countered. Griffeth sighed in irritation as he turned to the scout.

“Scout,” he said, bringing the resting guard to full attention. “Call of the guards and have the prisoners ranks and statuses terminated. Tomorrow, I, and my personal guard will confront them in the clearing. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir!” the scout saluted, causing Grimhide to frown in annoyance that the king was making a terrible mistake. “Good, you are dismissed. Leave us.” The scout nodded after hearing those words and bolted out of the throne room as fast as he came in. Griffeth knew what he was about to do was placing the entire Kingdom at risk, but it was a risk he was willing to take.

"If it feels good, tastes good. It must be mine!" I sang as I bounced around the frozen clearing as happy as a stripper with a hundred dollar coupon to Victoria's Secret. Never would I have guessed that I could stop time like Bayonetta's Witch Time, or Dante's Quick Silver in my life. The mana cost is a thousand times lower than my Mora Imperium spell and ten times more effective. The only restrictions was the area of the spell, which I'm not complaining about. Having five hundred meters to work in a time bubble was definitely going to be helpful in the long run.

I walked around the frozen Luna who was about to take a bite out of her sandvich. With a chuckle, I grabbed her food from her grasp and took a bite before placing it back in its original place. Then I walked a few feet away and snapped my fingers, canceling out my...'What should I call it other than, The Eye of Patience?' I thought for a moment. "I know! I'll call it Hourglass. That has a nice ring to it," I smiled as I watched time go back to normal. With a straight face, I watched Luna frown at her sandvich, noticing that half of it was missing. She looked around to see who stole her food for a moment before she shrugged and went back to eating her meal.

I chuckled at the sight of her scrunched pouty face of disappointment that someone took some of her food before I walked away to check up on the prisoners. Knowing them, they would try to break out while most of the cannon fodder were asleep for the night. Though, with the full moon over our heads and the cold wind from the rain from earlier, I don't think they would be stupid enough to try and run away with all the baddies surrounding our position.

That was something that didn't necessarily bothered me. Knowing that the majority of the islands population was watching us rather than attacking us was a bonus in my opinion. I bet they even notified their leaders that both Luna and I were on the island, and ready to fight at a moments notice, and I liked how most of them had their weapons on me. Even the chick that I punched into the nearby mountain was with them, looking for revenge for earlier.

'I bet she had a fun time digging herself out of the cliff face,' I chuckled internally as I looked towards the edge of the clearing where most of them were hiding. 'Though thanks to the Elements of Bigotry, I have a new trick up my sleeve, and I can't wait to use it on them.'

As I walked through the mud and various puddles of water to the area where the prisoners were kept, I saw something off. Two of the prisoners were missing their armor and one of the two was in rags. I looked around to see if one of my mercenaries was responsible for this theft, but then I realized that they couldn't, even if they tried. My orders were clear as the sky without clouds, and they knew that if anything was stolen from the prisoners, they, themselves, would be punished. Instead of rubbing my existence in Twilight and her friends faces, I decided to see what the hell happened to my tsundere demon Maria, and her friend, Penelope.

As I walked closer to the pair, the more I saw how distraught they were. Maria, who had the same body type as Lily; perfectly proportional curves that weren't too big nor too small. Even her breasts were the same size; a nice twelve double-D, however. The only difference was her tail. She had a long, slender, black tail with an arrowhead tip instead of fur, and she looked like her entire world was destroyed. Her black draconic wings were wrapped around her entire body as she sat on the bedroll that I provided in a hunched position as she tried to hide her face in her knees, was a sorry sight. Whatever happened to her and her friend, they were clearly heartbroken about it. Though Penelope was holding it together better than Maria, but she wasn't doing a good job at hiding it either.

I stopped my stride in front of the Griffin as she stared at the ground in disbelief as to what happened to her. I faked coughed once to get her attention, but she didn't move. I frowned that she was ignoring me, and decided that some water on her head was a good way to break her out of her trance. With a flick of the wrist, a little ball of water was flung at her face, and no one could stop it.

*Splash!*

"..."

No reaction.

"O...K...Let's try plan B," I muttered to myself as I grabbed Penelope's head and began to shake her like a ragdoll, but not even that caused a reaction out of her. I let out a sighed of annoyance that she was too stunned to even do anything for the moment, and stood her back up in her original position and walked away to talk to Maria instead.

As I took a few steps towards Marias, the sounds of squishing mud alerted her to my presence. She looked up like she wanted to outright murder me with her venomous, ruby red eyes, but decided that I wasn't worth it and shuffled away from me like I had cooties. I frowned at her hostility for a moment as I leaned over and waited for a response of some kind to my presence. But it never came. With a grunt, I tapped her gently on her head, which she responded by tightening her grip on herself in irritation.

"Alrighty then. Maria, I swear to God if you don't open up and tell me what the fuck happened to your armor. I won't let you share a tent with me tonight," I growled in frustration and a bit of play. I smirked for a moment as her wings gained a slight red hue, but put on a straight face again when she looked back up at me with pure malice.

"Fine! I'll tell you what the fuck happened, Dragon!" she spat in my face. I, however, was not amused by this gesture. "We have been terminated! The second our armor disintegrated into nothingness. We were no longer allowed to call ourselves the defenders of Eden and her people! We are nothing now. Nothing! If either of us was to show our faces to the King, we will be killed on the spot we stood on! There, are you happy now, Dragon?! You should have just killed us when you had the chance! At least, then we would still have our honor!" she seethed at me before she went back to brooding in her little ball of pain and sorrow.

"What are you looking at?" I said to the other prisoners and guards that overheard what Maria said. They quickly went back to doing their own business, leaving me alone with her again and needing a way to salvage her situation. I turned back to Maria who looked like she was crying under the protection of her wings, and wondered what I could do to help her?

Sure I could just add her to the Hive and be done with it, but that wouldn't be fair to her. Then again, if there is an entire mini-country on this island and Celestia doesn't know about, adding her to the HiveMind would be utterly pointless. 'So that just leaves me with A; make her my waifu, or B; Give her a purpose of fighting with me. Although, now that I know that going home is a small possibility, the waifu route would bring her pain in the end...Unless I bring her with me and go all Polygonous with Lily—Which I know she would be completely fine with. Alrighty then. Plan-A is a go!'

I rubbed the base of Maria's wings to coax her out of her little ball to see if I could bring her to my side. She instantly slapped my hand away with said wings like I was trying to steal from the cookie jar, but I was determined to break her out of her shell and give her a new purpose, and that purpose was to be my waifu!

I backed away for a moment and looked around to see what everyone else was doing before I dragged her like a caveman to my tent. Everyone was putting out most of the fires around the clearing before patrols began their shifts. Penelope was asleep. The main six was going to sleep. Ruby was still depressed in her corner of the cage. I saw Luna walked into her tent to sleep before she had to lower the moon and raise the sun. Captain Black was looking at me funny, but when he saw that I was looking right at him, he walked into his own tent. Sunset, Tom, Yoko, Gloria, Gilda, and Raven also went into their own tents for the night.

With an evil smirk, I placed my hand on Maria's shoulder and snapped my finger, activating Hourglass for the both of us. Before she could react, I picked her up bridal-style causing her to let out a cute, "Eep!" Once she realized that I was carrying her in my arms, she began punching my chest and trying to squirm away from me. I just smiled at her knowingly as she flailed around like a wacky-waving-arm-flailing-tube-man.

"Easy now. You don't want to fall in the mud while we walk?" I chuckled out loud as she continued to punch me as I began to walk to my tent for the night.

"Let me go you wretch!" she demanded as she wrapped her tail around my throat.

"Sorry, Love. You said it yourself: You are no longer a defender of Eden, thus, I can do whatever I want to you. And because of this fact, I no longer have to follow the laws that protected you as a prisoner of war. You are effectively mine now, and there is nothing you can do about it," I smiled wolfishly at her. Her face went as red as her hair after I said those words. She stopped hitting me and stopped squirming for a moment before she shook herself from her temporary daze and glared daggers at me.

'So close.'

"Then that also means that I can kill you!" she proclaimed to no one. I just rolled my eyes and initiated Plan C through Z.

"Sure you can, or you can be my mate. That is if you'll have me as yours?" I said slyly as we came up to my tent.

"M-M-Mate?!" she stutter-blushed while her wings fluttered in excitement and her tail uncoiled around my neck. I chuckled again while she tried to make sense of my words and placed her on my cot in the corner of the tent.

'Okay, Winter,..' I thought as I took off my jacket and placed it on the cot beside the mumbling Succubus. '...She is as Bipolar as most girls, and she is really feisty. She is strong enough to beat Luna in a fight, however. She is a bit stupid when she isn't on the battlefield. So with all this in mind, the best why to deal with her is to make her feel weak and completely submissive.'

'This is you when you are near a girl that matches one of your fantasies?' Said something in my head in a strangely feminine voice.

'Uh...Who the fuck are you?' I replied in my head as I took off my boots.

'Me? I'm just your imagination,' she replied.

'Ah...No, you are not. So talk now before I find a way to kill you.'

'Hmpf, sour puss. Well if you must know. I am the Angel known as Zuriel, the Angel of Harmony and Order. In other words, the super hot chick that comes with the Seven eyes of Order you have, somehow, acquired. And I must say, you aren't too bad looking yourself,' she purred. I quickly froze Maria in the time bubble so she won't give me any strange looks, and talked out loud to the voice. "O...K...So what do you want?"

'Hmm? Oh, I just want to talk to my host and to see how stable he was, and I'm quite surprised that you haven't gone insane yet. You must tell me your secret.'

"Void Aspect. 'Nough said,' I said blankly as I realized that she was cock-blocking me.

'Huh, that's interesting. Never thought a Void Knight would have their way with me in my lifetime. Anyway, I'll leave you alone for now. Have fun with that daemon...Master, Winter,' she giggled.

"Wha-?" I said dumbly, but she didn't reply back. I sighed, knowing now that my new powers had a conscience in the form of a voice in my head that calls herself Zuriel. Deep down I knew that there was a catch that came with Hourglass. Though now that I know about it, I bet I could use her to gain information about parts that I am missing about my old power, but that will have to wait for another time. With a groan of irritation, and some deep breathing to calm me down. I unfroze Maria to get to work on making her my waifu.

Author's Note

So... Daemon. That's what I am calling these Demons. So don't correct me on what I say! Baka!