Aino Millennia stared absently at the sky and shook. All around her, the house was a wreck - windows shattered, doors flung open - the roof was *smoking* in places. She'd bearly managed to put it out. The neighbors had actually gotten off worse, however.
Millennia was of the opinion that the neighbors could go piss on themselves. If her one last bit of supernatural ability - the sensitivity to power - could be at all trusted, then her daughter had been the cause of this.
The daughter that she almost given up any hope for had exploded into a power she hadn't dreamed Minako capable off.
"Did you feel it, Elena..? My daughter, stronger than us both.." A thick wave of graying red hair was mopped out of the woman's eyes as she whispered to herself - or rather, Her other self.
Technically, Millennia was a Tengu. It was, however, quite a technicality; Anyone meeting the now-crippled Darkstalker at the height of her power would have assumed they had met a truly *major* demoness in the classical vein - black, demons wings, flaming orange-red hair and a temper so short it required a microscope to measure. Wind, Darkness, lightning and fire had been her elements, and in the rather backward portion of the Makai in which she had come into her own, she had been greatly feared as a harbinger of doom.
Originally, however, the source of Millennia’s life had been a Tengu. A white winged Dove Tengu, in fact, a girl so puritanically innocent, chaste and righteous that she had represented a total discontinuity in the Makai. Elena had been her name, and she had been raised to be what she was, for only one purpose: To re-seal the prison of an extremely powerful Demon Lord of the Makai, a creature that had gone insane and been subjugated aeons ago.
The plot to interrupt the prophesy of Valmar's resurrection had basically succeeded and failed simultaneously. Elena's pure soul was able to stop Valmar's resurrection, true - but in exchange, Valmar had projected a portion of himself into Elena, seeking to draw out all of the wickedness in his foe's soul and create a new avatar, a descendant and an heir to his powerful wings of nightmares- resulting in Millennia.
Everything the young priestess had hated about herself and feared in the world was represented in the result, in form - that of the classical demoness - and in personality.
Which made Millennia just about as evil as your average Valkyrie. She was obnoxious, hard drinking, hyperactive, a thrillseaker and a sensualist, hard loving, Heavily judgmental, had an obscenely short temper and she loved a good fight - but Elena had been to innocent to even comprehend cruelty, and when push came to shove, Millennia had a kind streak as long as Elena's own.
They'd been sisters of a sort after a while, as Millennia calmed down a bit and Elena grew up- but then Pyron had come and forced her to bear his child. The rigors of that had nearly killed her, preventing her from using her own Valmar-granted powers - but those powers had not been destroyed until the girl's birth, when Millennia had used them to seal the Infant Minako's power, in order to not be destroyed outright by a newborn temper-tantrum.
Shortly thereafter, she had met a man who helped her regain some of her old fire - and Millennia, Wings of Valmar had become Aino Millennia, housewife and mother. There was some bitterness, however, in knowing that the respite was a short one. Sooner or later, Pyron would detect what she had done to hide the power of his heir, and come for her, and then her daughter would die, for it seemed that she'd managed to not only seal, but neutralize that power -
Only, tonight, that had proven not to be the case.
Millennia had felt it - the awakening of Pyron's influence in her daughter's power, raging out of control - but also felt the still growing power that fought to control it, both that which had once been hers, and Mina's own startlingly powerful energies -between them, easily the equal of that other, but distracted - and realized that her daughter had potential to not only fight and escape her father, but perhaps - the potential to beat him.
And then her overly dutiful daughter, whom Millennia had been trying to push into rebelliousness for *years* - had awakened to that power and gone to *do something* about the other influence that was making her loose the battle for control without a single word to ask permission.
"I'm so proud of her, Elena. So very proud."
The High priest of the fire-shrine had not stopped the inferno consuming his temple with a word and a gesture. It would have been within his power, of course - Grandfather Hino was not without his own ability as a sorcerer - but it *would* have been sacrilege. Fires were ment to burn, after all. Instead he meditated over it and discovered that something odd was happening.
Great walls of crimson flame roared up over the temple, set aflame by the battle that had demolished the porch - but the paper walls, the old timbers, the whole of it's structure -failed to be consumed: Instead they were transformed.
Paper walls became etched carvings of red jade, old beams became great iron supports, wood paneling became walls of elegantly cast brass - and the humble little shrine was becoming a temple worthy of it's young mistress. A place one of the noble fire spirits - an Efreet - would consent to live, it was also a holy fortress, as each panel and pane was etched with prayers that were also spells of protection.
Yet, this was something he could only see because of years of training - to someone with less spiritual insight than he or his granddaughter, it would continue to appear nothing more than an old, run down shrine.
The transformation was being done by a small legion of lesser fire spirits - if by 'lesser' one denoted Salamander Knights, Phoenixes, and other 'Ennobled' fire elementals; He didn't disturb their work, not wanting to be incinerated for speaking out of turn - because while they may have been 'Noble', they were also very obviously fire spirits from the Maikai, and the vampire lord, Dimitri, was also a 'Noble' by that realms perception.
And besides, a suspicion was forming in the old man's mind about just whom his son-in-law had been in the hierarchy of the Makai. Noble, yes. Very noble.
Noble enough to be in line for the throne of the City of Brass, where the Efreet ruled the strongest kingdom of fire, perhaps? And, his visions had shown him, a city that had recently lost all other potential Heirs to an internal war in the Makai..which would make Rei now the Heir presumptive.
The old fire priest kept his mind composed as he looked into this fire and sought guidance in how to handle this latest change in his granddaughter’s life. Perhaps it was time to get the old group back together. He had never been fully a part of it before, being the sponsor back in the old days - but perhaps, this time around, he could be more active. Adventure had come, and it was time someone laid the preparations for it.
Besides, it would be good to see Millennia-chan and Kaori-chan again, and the years had treated those two lovelies very well, as he recalled...
The Tsuinko household slept peacefully, unaware of their adopted Daughter's continued absence. The cause of that unconcern, a not-quite-so-young-anymore Lillith Ne Chibi-Usagi Serenity Aensland sat her lolicon self on her wings and practiced the mental prelude to the move Grandma had taught her just recently.
The 'Gloomy Puppet Show' took some mental discipline to develop properly, and the young succubus wasn't certain she had quite gotten it down right yet, so, since she was stuck keeping her Mama's adoptive family unaware of the Dark World happenings like Pu asked, she might as well get the practice in. It was just annoying she wasn't allowed to 'play' with Shingo any, really.
Meanwhile
(Posted Fri, 07 Feb 2003 02:58)
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