Proxy: Kokilapriya
Main Character: Zekaria
Green Mage: Mucia
Prism Mage: Mobashira
Red Mage: Michiu
Blue Mage: Madgei
Warrior: Meckailo
Cleric: Saori

Disgaea: Second Cycle

The snake-like creature charged forwards, lifting its tail in an almost Scorpion-like technique, stabbing it into its oppenent. Its opponent, the strange fusion of demon and cat known as the Nekomata, charged forwards, tail cleaving into its shoulder. The Nekomata now covered in blood, charged towards the snake-like creature, unleashing her claws in a technique fully capable of matching any martial arts technique, tearing apart the creatures face, even whilst poison flowed through her veins, sapping her of any life.

Their battle would continue, until one of them would die. Then, in Ragnarok-esque fashion, the winner would probably die from the wounds it took. This was how things were, for over a thousand years now. The observer of the battle simply sighed and continued on his way, muttering about the pointlessness of it all.

Upon arrival at the place he currently slept and gathered food to eat in, he gazed once more at the family posessions he had managed to save from being looted. Unfortunately, there wasn't even a whole lot of that. Virtually anything useful had been taken, leaving him with minimal supplies and even less money. He seated himself on the floor, and began looking through whatever balance notes he could find.

"Hmm... It looks like I'll have to sell another one again.." He quickly looked over whatever could potentially have some value, but couldn't seem to find anything. He sighed annoyedly, noting that it looked like he would have to go out and "work" for money again.

He picked up the almost shattered sword he had, built of copper which had rusted long ago, and blunted through years of low maintenance, with no help from the fact that the weapon was bad quality to begin with. However, before he could do anything, someone familiar appeared before him.

A Divine Majin, and one of extreme power at that. It had gone beyond the level of Greater Demons long ago, before he had even been born. This one in particular had served his father, the previous Overlord, over 1500 years ago. It was quick to skip through the normal greetings, and as always, went straight to the point.

"Master Zekaria, I believe that it is almost time for you to reclaim your birthright. I believe it's almost become time, when everything is positioned correctly that you'll be able to pull it off."

"Kokilapriya... I didn't even know you were still alive." The Divine Majin looked surprised at that.

"What are you talking about? I've been the Proxy of every single Overlord since your father! I'm considered one of the most influential senators in the senate? How could you NOT have heard of me?"

"Well, in case you haven't noticed..." Zekaria paused a moment, and waved his hand around the area, showing off his vast wealth and prestige. "This is all that's here. I don't have anything at all, except for maybe this useless sword here." Kokilapriya instantly responded.

"Well, why don't you try to get some pupils to fight for you? All we have to do is get you registered in the Assembly as a First Rank. Virtually anyone can get in so long as they're interested, and it will allow you a quick army to get! Just let me handle everything, you just tell me what you're going to need."

"Hmm..." Zekaria contemplated the situation. The nature of the assembly required one to sacrifice some of their own energy to actually allow them to summon the assembly and gather forces... Naturally, if one used their own energy directly, it would kill them. As such, the most common way to gather this was to kill other demons, and gather up THEIR life energy instead... of course, with Zekaria's current history, he only had life energy equivelant to about 12 demons, not considered much in the assembly at all. Of course, this also meant that he would only be able to gather about a dozen people to fight for him.

He sighed slightly, and thought over his options one last time before deciding.

"Let's see... I'm going to need a Red Mage, a Blue Mage, a Green Mage, a Cleric, A Fighter, and... Seven Prinnies." Kokilapriya nodded as he heard the decisions, and finally spoke up after hearing all the options.

"All right, give me a week, and I'll have the army for you." With that, the Divine Majin left, leaving Zekaria to his own devices.

***

Kokilapriya looked at his first "target", and watched from where he was hiding, examining the sheet of paper.

"Meckailo, the warrior. Thought to be descended from a human..." As he watched, a very annoyed Greater Zombie chased Meckailo's group. Orders were thrown throughout the group, pertaining to how they were going to escape.

"Zombies are slow, so if we run across, then cut the ropes of that bridge, we can escape! Meckailo, you cut the ropes, got it?!" Meckailo made a hurried affirmation as the group began closing in on the bridge in question, and, completing his orders, Meckailo cut the ropes holding the bridge up, causing a lengthy silence, before one of his comrades responded.

"...Meckailo?"

"Yes?"

"You DID realize we were supposed to CROSS the bridge before you cut the ropes, right?"

Meckailo froze.

"...What?"

***

"The green mage of the Magus Triplets, Mucia..."

A great army bore down upon Mucia's much smaller team. Her leader, a Majin, looked towards Mucia.

"We're counting on your magic here, you'd better do it right."

"Don't worry! I'm a master at wind magic! Behold, my delicious magic!"

With that, Mucia began her spell. And, as her spell took hold, all the rocks around her team lifted up into the air. The Majin perked up immediately.

"...This might actually work! If we throw all the rocks at the enemy..."

The Majin was unfortunately unable to finish his sentence, as a rock flew at high-speed into his head, knocking him down. The other rocks in turn began to target the other people in the team, until soon all the rocks were knocking down everyone in the group, until Mucia was the last one standing. Mucia quickly opened her eyes, and blinked.

"Eh? What happened? This is so mysterious..."

***

"The Blue Mage of the Magus Triplets, Madgei..."

The mountain the expedition team had been climbing was almost legendary. However, that would all change soon enough... the Nekomata in charge of the expedition smiled somewhat evilly, continuing to think about her grand plans. Soon, she would be worshipped throughout the Netherworld. She would be the first demon to ever reach the top of it, and establish herself in an almost god-like status, giving her not simply the prestige, but also the title of Greater Demon. Yes, soon she would rule over most all demons... everything would bow down to her.

So into these thoughts was she that she didn't notice the fact that the ledge she was standing on, ahead of the rest of the group, was beginning to collapse, until it had indeed done so, causing her to fall... though not an especially high amount, and her natural cat-like ability of maneuvering in air would practically guarantee that she would barely be hurt at all. However, one of her expedition team didn't see it that way.

"Don't worry, master! I'll save you!" Madgei shouted, before beginning to cast her magic.

"Ice, obey my command! Make a gigantic iceberg appear below my master, and save her from an untimely death due to falling!" Madgei chanted after casting the actual spell. However, when one says big speeches like that, things tend to move, and once the spell was actually cast, it gave itself form, promptly freezing the Nekomata in its tracks.

Frozen as it was, the Nekomata was incapable of making anything that could be considered a soft landing, and quickly bounced off the ground, ultimately sending the immobile Nekomata rolling off a large cliff to an untimely death. The rest of the group turned and glared at Madgei, who came to the same conclusion as everyone else.

"Umm... That's my fault, isn't it?" She queried, before nervously laughing as the rest of the entourage stalked towards her.

***

"The Red Mage of the Magus Triplets, Michiu..."

It was a small encampment by nature. Of course, hunting parties weren't especially common in the Netherworld, mainly because for the most part, the things that would normally be hunted happen to be sentient beings. Generally, hunting parties were usually formed so that the parties would gain prestige, having managed to defeat as many of a specific race of demon as possible, ironically making those demons more willing to join them. Sure it was slightly hypocritical, but then, this was the Netherworld, where hypocrisy and violence ruled over all.

However, as with any hunting party spending more than a day outside any civilized area, the eternal problem came up. The warrior of the group, highly acclaimed throughout the land for his skills on the battlefield, cursed as he rubbed two sticks together, trying in vain to make enough sparks to cause a fire. Michiu, the designated mage of the group, spoke up, again.

"Why don't you let ME do this? Fire spells are my specialty, you know!" Everyone in the group turned to her and instantly began backing up, the warrior being the one to speak for the rest of the group.

"...Are you sure that's safe?" Michiu seethed in annoyance as she heard his response, before responding in kind.

"Oh? And you think your trying to make sparks that may or may not even HIT the wood in question is better? Your way is MUCH more likely to endanger us, not to mention torch the entire forest." The warrior, not quite understanding Michiu's logic, decided that it was probably easiest to just give in. Thus, Michiu began casting her own spell.

She looked at the ground and closed her eyes, focussing all her physical energy on casting the spell. As she cast the spell, she thought to herself, about how frustrating being here was. What did they think she spend the last millenium doing, anyways? She sighed frustratedly, thinking about how she wanted to become a mage in the first place so that she could help people, but she always seemed to wind up with people who didn't appreciate her skills, and wouldn't let her actually do anything... The more she thought of it, the angrier she felt. After a little longer of this, she realized that she finished casting the spell, and opened her eyes. As she opened her eyes, she was greeted by a blazing wall of flames.

"What happened here?!" Michiu cried in shock. Her response came from a Succubus in the team, who was frantically running away from the flame.

"You got a tree, you idiot! from there, it spread! The entire forest's going to be burned down!"

Michiu seemed to shrink down upon hearing this, and sighed as the flames erupted around her, before talking to herself.

"...Well, at least my magic will hunt down LOTS of demons that we would have hunted..."

***

"...and here is... the Prinny Gang, a..." Kokilapriya did a double-take on the information, before continuing the monologue.

"...Prinny-only Musical Band?" Kokilapriya looked around slightly, and noticed the Prinnies in position around several microphones, with several speakers potentially filling the area with sound. Upon noticing this, Kokilapriya cursed, and ran away to wait out the 'concert'."

Of course, the Prinny Gang didn't have a whole lot of time for their concert, or in fact even testing the sound. Truth be told, they should have been doing their REAL work, the traditional slave labor that Prinnies are normally expected to do. Thus, they would have to make this quick, before their boss found out... Which in fact was much sooner than they expected.

A Alp, the owner of a rather large estate in the Netherworld, as well as the boss of the Prinny Gang, floated into the area. Unfortunately for him, no sooner had he entered than the concert started.

In a mere few moments, the Alp was on the ground, half-passed out and vomitting uncontrollably, as the amplified effect of the Prinnies' music blasted through his body.

A half hour later, the Prinny Gang's empty-plus-one concert ended, giving the Prinnies time to look around, and notice the Alp in question, unconsious.

"Dood, this isn't good..."

"Looks like we're going to have to find some new work, dood..."

"Think he'll get some goons to throw us, dood?"

"Dood, he can't throw us if we run away right now!"

The rest of the Prinny Gang made shouts of "Dood!" in agreement, and soon the entire band was on the run.

***

Zekaria twitched as the pounding on his door increased in volume. It wasn't normal for people to go knocking on doors in the Netherworld in the first place, particularly not at this time... demons have to sleep too, he muttered to himself as he dragged himself up and to the door.

He could tell that Kokilapriya was definately among them, but it sounded like there were at least a dozen people outside, which was quite unusual unless there was a battle going on. He forced himself to open the door, and beheld the group before him.

Outside, 7 Prinnies had apparently ganged up on one poor defenseless warrior, and were constantly trying to explain to him that they actually sang well, whilst three mages - one of each of the basic elements - continued conversing, seemingly telling eachother horror stories about their previous jobs, whilst Kokilapriya attempted to pull a female Cleric who had decided that he would make an excellent shield off of him, pounding the wall with his other hand as he attempted to maintain his balance. Zekaria decided that the best way to figure out what was going on was to ask the first thing that came to his mind.

"...Ok, Kokilapriya... what the hell is going on here?" Upon hearing the question, Kokilapriya sighed, before making a response.

"Well, these are the twelve you needed. We've got a warrior, an elemental mage of each element, seven Prinnies, and..." He attempted to pull the cleric off of his back again, just as miserably as the previous times.

"...A cleric, if she'll ever LET GO!" He shouted at the cleric, causing her to release him, and promptly hide behind the nearest corner. Kokilapriya heaved an annoyed sigh, before continuing.

"These were the best I could get without short notice, and the best you could get with that small amount of mana... but as you can see, they're not exactly top of the barrel." At the end of the sentence, Zekaria spoke up.

"That's... putting it lightly." He said, pointing to the Warrior who was currently suffering under the assault of the music of seven Prinnies. Kokilapriya made another sigh.

"Well, I guess I should introduce you to everyone then..."

"...I think the Warrior's going to need a hospital trip first."

"Let me handle that, it won't take long."

About an hour later, everyone was once again unified outside Zekaria's home, with seven Prinnies tied up and gagged so they couldn't do anything like sing. Thus, Kokilapriya began the introductions.

"The three mages here are the Magus Triplets." Zekaria blinked for a moment, before the information registered.

"...These three are from the Magus family? That family's been known for having the most powerful spellcasters in it since practically the dawn of time!" Kokilapriya nodded, allowing Zekaria time to ask the obvious question.

"Then this is good, isn't it? We've got three of the potentially most powerful mages in the Netherworld on our side!" Kokilapriya just shook his head.

"It seems their sister Mobashira got the spellcasting family trait. The rest of them aren't really considered anything more than Good-for-nothings." The Red Mage immediately jumped into the air as soon as the last word was finished.

"Hey! What are you calling us?!" The Green Mage stood up for herself as well, whilst the Blue Mage simply covered her face with her hands and sighed.

"Yeah! Our magic's the most delicious thing in the world!" It was probably this that prompted a response from the Blue Mage.

"How many times have I told you?! Delicious means that something tastes good! Magic doesn't taste good, unless it involves food in some way! Otherwise, magic shouldn't taste at all! Honestly, it's because of you two that we're always looked down upon as crazy idiots who can't stop talking..." As the speech continued, the other two mages simply spaced out, not really paying attention, and apparently doing their best to ignore it. Zekaria, slightly annoyed with the antics of the three, pressed Kokilapriya on.

"...And? Who else is there?"

"Ah, yes... the Warrior is known as Meckailo.I can't quite tell you his surname, but common belief is that his family interbred with humans generations ago."

Interbreeding was actually quite an unusual thing. With the exception of a few angels that came down to assassinate demons in key locations, then fell in love with their target and were promptly assassinated by their own kind, any sort of romantic contact between angels, demons, and humans was practically unheard of. Even relationships between different species of demon was uncommon, so the concept of having a child born of the main species of two seperate worlds was downright rare.

Because of their rarity, they were constantly the cause of rumors after rumors. Everyone constantly wondered if it was even physically possible to have a child capable of continueing on the family line in such a relationship. And of course, there were always those who believed that maybe being the cross-breed of two different species would make them either horrifically skilled in whatever they attempted to excel in, or would be horrifically idiotic in everything they did. Of course, Zekaria had learned to stop listening to such things long ago.

"...and? Is there anything else of note about him?" Upon hearing Zekaria's question, Kokilapriya flinched.

"Other than his lack of common sense... I'm afraid not."

Meckailo felt frustrated at this conversation. His achievements -and lack thereof- over the past millenium were being discussed right in front of him, trying to decide his destiny for him. However, he knew enough to keep quiet. It wasn't his job to think, or argue, or get himself killed by getting himself hated by his new boss, after all.

The conversation would probably have continued, but Zekaria noticed the warriors irritation, and decided to continue on.

"You still have more to introduce me to, you know." Zekaria stated coldly, getting Kokilapriya back to the matter at hand.

"Ah, yes... the Prinnies here are the Prinny Gang, a musical-band-" Zekaria cut him off before he could finish the qeustion.

"A musical band?! Of Prinnies?! Who's insane enough to support that?!" The Prinnies, upon hearing their musical skills insulted, immediately hopped into a flurry of shouting.

"Dood, you're the one supporting us now!"

"Just because we're Prinnies doesn't mean we can't sing, dood!"

The other five agreed with the second Prinny, making loud comments of "Dood!" in agreement. Zekaria sighed, and motioned for Kokilapriya to continue on.

"...I was able to get them because their boss was almost killed by trying to bust one of their concerts." Kokilapriya shook his head as he said this, prompting another frustrated sigh from Zekaria. With that, Kokilapriya began slowly backing off.

"...And that should be everyone. I know they're not exactly the best there is, but I'm sure you'll be able to use them well, Prince. I'll jsut be leaving now-" He said, as he continued to back away from the area. However, Zekaria wasn't about to let him go that easily.

"Wait! You still haven't introduced the cleric here." Zekaria pointed at her to make emphasis, prompting the cleric to make a sound similar to "eep" and attempt to hide behind the corpse of a rather large golem, before realizing what it was she was hiding behind, and quickly hopping into the opening again.

"I notice that she doesn't have the same ears as a demon." Zekaria continued, ignoring her obvious panic. Kokilapriya froze for a minute, before beginning an explanation.

"She's the child of one of the first Angelic refugees. You know, the ones that were sent to assassinate key officials in the Dark Senate about 1900 years ago, then wound up falling in love with one of their targets?" Zekaria shrugged slightly, and made an affirmation of "that would explain a lot" before allowing Kokilapriya to continue.

"The cleric here, Saori, was considered one of the greatest healers in the Netherworld at one time... but after her mother was assassinated, she was like this. As far as anyone knows, she hasn't said a word since then, and gets absolutely terrified of meeting new people." Zekaria, listening closely to Kokilapriya, decided to query him on the most obvious question.

"IF that's so, then... how is it that you managed to get her over here, anyways?" Kokilapriya gained a panicked look on his face, and Zekaria decided it was best to just let Kokilapriya get away with it for now.

"Don't worry, you don't have to answer... yet. I'd like an explanation once we get a base established, though."

This statement immediately struck home the biggest problem for the newly formed army, Zekaria quickly realized.

"...Wait... I don't have any money! How am I supposed to pay for an army?" Kokilapriya smiled sagely, as thuogh he knew this question would come up.

"There's a mansion not too far from here which is under minimal guard, due to the owner of the estate recently eliminating some of its personell. The place should have more than enough money for your needs." Kokilapriya said, handing Zekaria a map before silently disappearing into the night.

***

"Ok, this is the place." Zekaria said, bringing his face away from the map and staring at the luxurious mansion before him. Almost instantly, the Prinny Gang stared at the building in shock.

"...Dood, doesn't this place look familiar?"

"We were here less than a day ago, dood!"

"Dood, this is where our old boss lives!"

The Prinny Gang smirked evilly at the thought of looting their old boss dry, and indeed probably would have continued doing just that were it not for Zekaria leading them in.

Zekaria pushed open the mansion door, making an exceptional amount of noise in the process, as he cursed about the fact that rich people never use decent, working, well-oiled doors for people to easily loot with, before turning back to his group.

"Remember everyone, we've got to grab everything. It doesn't really matter what, if we're going to have a base, we're going to need as much as possible! Anything we can't use, we can always sell later!" Zekaria shouted back at the group, as a counter force consisting of half a dozen Imps charged forwards to fend off the invaders.

"This is minimal guard? Tch... can't trust his information." Zekaria muttered to himself, before ordering everybody into battle positions.

"Leave this to us, dood!" Shouted one of the Prinnies, bringing along five of the other Prinnies.

"Yeah dood! We'll show our boss to think about throwing us around!" Shouted another Prinny. However, one of the Prinny Gang seemed rather doubtful.

"Uhh... dood..." The other prinnies ignored that one, and rushed towards the Imps, quickly bursting into song... upon which, nothing happened.

"Dood, what happened?" The Prinny seperated from the others simply sighed.

"Dood, we don't have speakers or even microphones right now. There's no way our singing can do anything without some more volume." The other Prinnies seemed to freeze as they heard this, muttering a frightened Dood as the imps pounced upon them, beginning a seemingly violent beat-down, from which Zekaria was forced to sigh upon seeing.

"Great... such great soldiers I have working for me..." However, it seemed that the green mage had other plans.

"It looks like there's only one thing to do..." She said to herself, as she lifted the Prinny not involved in any fighting over her head.

"Dood?!!" The Prinny shouted, panicked. Everyone quickly turned to face her, and she took the audience to mean it was time to begin her attack.

"Magus Sister Green Ultimate Technique!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, deafening anyone close enough to be deafened by her yelling(1). From that point she continued, pausing after each word for a moment, shouting each word as loud as she could.

"Mucia! Flaming! Imps!" With that, she tossed the Prinny into the beatdown, and watched as the Prinny exploded as soon as it hit something, creating a chain of explosions as each Prinny in turn exploded. Of course, the rest of the party simply watched in a mixture of shock and emberassment as the explosions trapped the imps inside.

Of course, there was an exception to this. Mucia herself had an almost evil smirk watching this, and spoke one syllable at a time.

"De-lic-ous."

Zekaria was probably the first to recover, focussing on a spot on the floor, wondering why he couldn't get any sane and sensible demons to work for him.

The next one to recover was undoubtedly Madgei, who quickly burst into one of her almost patented rants(2). We'll exclude most of the speech so that you the reader will be able to avert the boredom of most of it, but it primarily consisted of "Why are you emberassing us like that, blowing up Prinnies when we haven't even really gotten the job yet?", "I told you before, delicious means something tastes good, not however you use it!", and it would have gone away from those two points were it not for the explosion dying down. Leaving seven passed-out Prinnies and six flaming Imps running out of the room in an attempt to put out the fire.

"...Hey, Tenchan(3). Check to see if the Prinnies are dead." Zekaria ordered, pointing at Saori in spite her attempts to hide behind Meckailo. She feigned ignorance for another few minutes before realizing that there was no escape and walked just close enough to the Prinnies to poke them with her staff, and promptly did just that. In response to the poking, the poked Prinny twitched slightly, and seemed to try to mutter something along the lines of "Dood", but was incapable of doing even that.

Just the same, the Prinny's movement was enough to get Saori to hide behind the nearest that wouldn't move yet would still be good for hiding behind. Zekaria sighed slightly, and turned to face Mucia before beginning a speech of his own.

"Well, congratulations. Now each of us has to carry twice the amount of stuff, in addition to the Prinnies themselves, which we can't leave behind because they're still alive." With that, he turned back to the task at hand.

"We should probably clear out the furthest rooms in first, then clean things out as we go. We can pick up the Prinnies and clear out this room after everything else is emptied out."

With that, he continued into the next room, slowly and methodically going through the house, clearing out room by room, until they had cleared out the house, and dragged the passed-out Prinnies back to their hide-out, leaving the flaming mansion(4) behind them.

***

Zekaria looked at that which would soon become his home-base, slowly examining the costs of the renovations in question, as well as the price for the Prinnies' hospital fees.

"Well, looks like we've still got enough money to last us a month..." He said to himself, as he watched the renovations take place.

EPISODE 1: END





1: Which, as fate would have it, was noone, not even the Prinny she was carrying, though her shout DID hurt its ears a lot.

2: Almost patented meaning that they COULD have been patented, had she bothered to. After all, even in the Netherworld, it was a challenge to talk as much as Madgei

3: Yes, it's a Japanese thing... this'll be taken out once I find a better English equivelant, but for now I might as well describe the general meaning of this name. "Ten" is short for Tenshi, the Japanese word for angel. The "-chan" suffix is one of the "naming suffixes"... meaning that they're put on the ends of other people's names according to their status, primarily consisting of -san, "-sama", -kun, and -chan. The "-sama" suffix was actually originally only supposed to be used for gods or royalty, so using -sama generally denotes a lot of respect. The "-san" suffix is the most common one, and is considered to be the proper formal suffix to use. In the Japanese version of Disgaea, Flonne applies this to... pretty much everyone, which is why she adds "Mr" to most of the male names in the game. The "-kun" suffix could be considered to be equivelant to people being good friends with eachother, though I can't say I remember a single character in Disgaea actually using this. Finally, "-chan" is generally only used by children or to indicate a great deal of closeness... and is one of the most used naming suffixes in anime and games, which says a lot about the mental maturity about the main characters in games, as you're expected to stop using "-chan" at about the time you become a teenager. Sorry for the lengthy speech here!

4: I know what you're going to say: "When did they set the mansion on fire?" Well, that was actually a deleted scene, which will one day be written into the story, once I manage to actually complete the thing. (assuming I DO complete this story)