March (Friday)

Judas Contract Subject 020
Codename: Paragon
Another of Wallace’s disciples from the pre-RW days, Lucien’s heroism is legendary both on Earth and throughout the Dream. Lucien is well liked throughout the guild, and when the Emperor thought Wallace would one day replace him, I’d wager that Wallace thought Lucien would take his place in kind. It’s not hard to see why, the demigod accomplished many feats and broke many records the former Strength himself set during the early period of the guild when what would become the Major Arcana were structured in open competition with what would become the Minor Arcana. Regardless, eventually the malevolent behemoth retired his efforts, choosing instead to focus on felling the most terrible beasts on the frontier of our expansion. This left Lucien to occupy the role Wallace once had, that of the administrative lead who can expertly delegate and spend most of his real time in the field shielding the innocent.
‘Shielding’ being the operative word. Lucien’s foremost ability is his perfect shielding capability. Lucien is able to focus his attention onto any active target, direction, or object and follow it perfectly. His mind and body work in conjunction on their own, carrying the shield he has been blessed with and sticking it between evil and innocence. At his own behest, several tests have been run on this ability of his, the only certain ability he has inherited from his lineage. In testing, nothing targeted was able to bypass Lucien’s shield. His tower shield has the durability to shrug off the destructive load of a Paradox Reality Cannon, he has the dexterity to block individual photons from a light gun, and when he dueled Isabelle Ardyn, the current Strength, he displayed the capability to combine both of these attributes in blocking any and all of her sword swipes, more destructive than the former and potentially faster than the latter. However, it should be noted that he could not land a hit on the awakened champion either.
Weaknesses to this ability are numerous. Foremost, Lucien only blocks that which he is paying attention to. Surprise attacks are particularly effective on the demigod. During the last contract I went on with him, he was taken out early on from his guard role by a single surprise attack from Wallace. Lucien's report from the very same contract shows he is clearly capable of facing Wallace in pitched combat. Lucien and Sorvel together held Wallace back for ten minutes, and may have been able to hold the giant off longer if he hadn’t doubled down on Sorvel and stole her away, not five minutes before Shelle arrived back at their former lair with reinforcements. In addition, Lucien can only focus on one thing at a time. Multiple attacks in different areas simultaneously prevents him from settling down into a single defensive area, though Lucien’s proactivity in meeting his opponents often renders this drawback moot.
Lucien’s ambition and imposing abilities bely his kindness. Though intimidating to all but his closest friends, Lucien’s true nature stands amongst those I’ve written as the least susceptible to corruption by Nairis. Even the most common trappings of those in the Abyss have no bearing on Lucien. He already possesses eternal youth as a demigod, functional immortality which will keep him in his prime forever. He admires the process necessary to gain power more than power itself, though I suspect he resents the guild’s champions due to this. Though his **** ambition may typically act as an open door to influence from entities such as Nairis, the meditation taught to him by Wallace and improved through his own efforts centers his ambition fully around himself. Similar to his admiration of the process necessary to acquire power, Lucien sees the results of his actions as substantially less meaningful than the actions themselves. In other words, Lucien does what he does purely to put good into the world, and not for the results or rewards that come after. Further review may be required for his psychology report, I can’t be unbiased. When I was a Four of Swords and Wands just starting my detective duties, Lucien interrupted his own promotion ceremony to Ace to give me his personal, carbon copies of files I accidentally spilled blood all over, just so I could finally go home and rest.
Aside from his incredible shielding and near-mundane peace of mind, Lucien has incredible offensive abilities and a storied history with several prominent members of our guild. Particularly, Lucien is gifted in the precise art of pressure magic. He can command the forces of pressure in the environment like Poseidon over the oceans, raising further questions of his true parenthood. Still, extensive observation of these magics has shown no apparent divine influence or power source.
Though I usually like to keep personal conversations off the official record, Lucien’s rap sheet gives us very little to go on. That being said, I’ll assume he’s never going to read this file: Lucien has made it his personal mission to save Sorvel from the corruption and suffering Wallace has **** her to. Though it would be extremely out of character, I’m worried he’s going to go it alone and end up **** like her. The two previous apprentices of Strength were awfully close after all. Even I cannot comment with certainty on the nature of their relationship.

“Maybe you could talk to him,” Mandruzzo said, leading Grace down the hall of sublevel ten, “you are sort of his apprentice, yes?”

“He’s not taking the kidnappings well, huh? At least they didn’t get Jenny.” Grace scratched her side through her jacket, stopping with her friend in front of one of the doors to the training rooms.

“I would not say that,” Mandruzzo said, cracking a small smile despite everything. “He is relentless. He puts on a strong front when everyone is together, but I can tell he has not relaxed, probably slept, in days.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Grace replied, putting a hand on the blond’s shoulder on her way into the training room barrier to confront John.

She found him mid combat against a simulation of necromantic enemies in an unlit room. Using instincts instilled into her by him, she slipped through his firing patterns by avoiding the enemies he so perfectly shot. They had been in these rooms so many times before that she easily found the console using his muzzle flashes for guidance. She turned the simulation off, brightening the room and transforming the physical illusion of concrete on the floor into the bright white tiles of the proper training room.

“Grace?! What are you doing in here!? I could have hurt you!” John snapped, holstering his guns and tightening his gun belt in one motion.

“You taught me better than that. Besides, have a little more faith in my constitution and preparation, alright?” Grace replied, flashing him an activated shield sticker on her arm. “I keep one of these on me all the time now, ‘specially after Shelle helped me work out the mana channel problem.”

“Fair enough. Sorry I went off on you there,” John said, accepting the hug Grace offered. When she stepped into his embrace, she saw the bags under his eyes, and felt the way he slouched into her.

“John, I know you’ve got something bothering you. I want to learn everything I can from you. And letting it out will help you, I’m here to listen.” Grace stepped away; she caught the quill sticker that faded off her back, helped her find the right words.

“I’ll never be good enough, Grace.”

“You can’t possibly mean that!” Grace gasped, grabbing his arm as he turned away. “You’ve done so much good already.”

“If I had gotten there just a day sooner, if I had never gone on that contract at all…” John grabbed his hat off his head and crushed it.

“You mean Phoebe and her whole family would have died? We’re only humans, John, you do all one person can do, more than anyone’s expected to do.” She released his arm and slid her hand up to his shoulder, grabbing it reassuringly.

“I chose to become a bounty hunter. I wanted to be out there fighting the bad guys, saving people. How long until it’s me? Later, or maybe even sooner, Nairis, Crow, or even a mindless beast. Every time I make a mistake, someone else pays for it,” John lamented, letting his hat fall from his grip to the floor. “How long until the next person gets hurt, gets taken? How long until it’s you?

“I spent most of my time in this guild a ****, but now I have the freedom to do as I please. But I’m still always just doing what other people tell me. Just following orders. I’ve become a soldier. A tin man. How much am I actually doing?”

“I’ve personally seen you save dozens of lives!” Grace pointed out, and she was joined by his fire elemental emerging from him.

“I’ve seen you save hundreds more; many would be dead without you,” Cinder said, picking his hat up off the ground. She dusted it off and replaced it on his head.

“Maybe, maybe someone else would have done it. When you immerse yourself so much into the Abyss, it seeps into you, it becomes you. Maybe I should claim my birthright and live a mundane life, before I let anyone else I care about get hurt!”

“Oi, which way is it to Grace’s?” Sable asked, holding her phone up to her head. She shoved past a large man carrying a guitar case about three feet too long for a mundane instrument. She finally exited from the Abyssal Inferno to the mundane Seven Circles of Hell, casually waving to the bartender as she exited the ‘women’s restroom’ before exiting the just-opened club entirely and walking into dusk of Springfield’s setting sun.

“The Rider-Waite public operative building in Springfield is at Earth coordinates forty two point eight nine six north, eighty point nine three five nine south,” the phone’s artificial intelligence responded; her screen blinked from a transcript of the exchange to a map.

“I asked for directions. I swear these things are useless unless you know how to prompt them,” Sable scowled and zoomed in on the cityscape map with a few taps, though she dropped her arm when she looked beyond her screen to a distorted barrier of the world beyond. “Shite. Is this one of the fast travel barriers she’s told me about?”

“This is a trap barrier, I suggest-”

“Desire, desire, what do you need?” A blast of **** and music drowned out the rest of her phone’s automatic reply, leaving the rocker’s already aching ears ringing. It knocked her on her ass and her glasses askew, but she couldn’t see the woman or recognize the unnaturally bright, almost filtered voice.

“So, what’s the plan?” John asked, walking up to the group waiting for him outside the Old Springfield cemetery. To the side of the open gate in a tight circle stood Shelle in her purple robe, Lucien hunched over in a t-shirt too big even for him and dyed gray hair, Crossfire with mounds of wrinkles and bright white hair, and a woman he didn’t recognize in a duster not unlike the jacket he destroyed and a pink cowboy hat shorter and wider than his. The red knight waved him over with a broad smile.

“Hey, new guy! Like my cover? We’re picking out a funeral plot.” Crossfire leaned his chin on his hands and crimson cane as John approached, despite his age glamour he moved fast and easily like a young man. “Don’t I recognize you from somewhere?”

John cracked a smile as he joined the circle, nodding to the group. “We met on my first day here, you tested my friend Abigail. I also saw you get blasted into the infirmary a couple months ago. I’m John. The only person totally new to me here is my fellow cowperson.” He tipped his hat to the woman, who covered her face with her own.

She gave him a sardonic smile then spat a thick gray wad away from the group. “I’d wager you ne’er tend cattle a day of your life. You’ve got a nice hat, though. Call me Della. Shelle’s my sponsor.”

“Wait, so you’re the ‘John’ Shelle knows,” Crossfire said, putting a hand on his chin as the mage nodded across from him, momentarily looking away from her side conversation with Lucien, “and you’re the ‘John’ Abigail knows? AND you’re the guy I’ve seen around all the time. Are you the Champion of Gaia?”

“That’s what they tell me,” John replied coolly, trying not to think about the numerous champion’s visions or that he had used the phenomenon to escape mortal danger. He was about to break into the conversation again, but Abigail and Mandruzzo arrived together from a slim black car. The Italian mage waved off the driver before joining the group proper.

“So if Abigail is sponsored by Crossfire, you’re sponsored by Lucien, Mandruzzo?” John asked, raising a brow at the bubble mage who walked over to stand in front of his sponsor, just a bit over half the height of the three meter tall tank, who answered instead.

“Mandruzzo is one of many I have sponsored. I admire his sense of honor and self improvement,” Lucien commented, putting a hand on the shorter blond’s shoulder. “I do not think Isabelle is going to be here. We’d better begin.”

“Unless you’ve got something else to say about it, Isabelle Ardyn,” John said, looking up at the sky when he emphasized her name. He brought his gaze back down to earth quickly; the expected disappointment left a bitter taste rolling around his mouth.

“For those of you who haven’t read the dossier,” Shelle said, tilting her head to meet John’s gaze. The gunman shifted his eyes down, a sheepish smile on his face as he remembered the night he had spent with Jenny in the Inferno, at the time the next day’s mission seemed so far away. He snapped back to attention when Mandruzzo next to him elbowed him in the ribs.

“We’re searching Springfield’s cemeteries for any sign of the Entity’s influence. We were supposed to split into four pairs, a team for each. A coordinated attack is important; after Crossfire broke into another of their lairs on one of the decrepit cemeteries on the edge of town, they changed their defenses. We’ve broken into all four larger barriers within each cemetery. Today, we use it to cripple their resources, and see if we can open up a larger opportunity to move in on the aberration itself. Or at worst, get some information.” Shelle created a barrier on a whim, pulling them all into it so she could stretch her hands out to display a holographic map of Springfield in the air. Her mana shaped into squares and lines which showed the city proper, and the four cemeteries close to each intermediate corner of the roughly rectangular city.

“Since our glorious leader took a leave, I’ll take the lead. I’ll go alone, I can escape pretty much anything. Della, you go with John. Hey,” Shelle said, lifting her chin and speaking more directly to him, “don’t be a hero. This is reconnaissance, not a strike-team.”

“Shoot, we’ll get it done, captain,” Della said, flicking her index finger over the brim of her hat. “Say Crossfire, what was it like last time?”

“There were huge bone sigils supplying skeletal schematics with necromantic power,” Crossfire explained, splaying out his arms not to create some symbolic mana construct but just for physical emphasis. “It seems like it takes corpses and recreates them.”

“There aren’t very many powerful Abyssals in the Springfield cemeteries, yes? I can feel the necromantic energy radiating off the corpses from here, that much is obvious. What could they be making?” Mandruzzo asked, pinching his chin between his fingers. His other hand idly juggled two bubbles between his fingers while he thought.

“That’s what we’re here to find out. Crossfire, you’re taking this one. You’re in the center of town. Be inconspicuous when you’re outside of barriers. Lucien, you take the other cemetery in town. Della, you take John to the graves we intended to search. I’ll take Isabelle’s target, the barriers near Nairis’ old lair. Gather information, dismantle any power structures you can, but don’t get caught,” Shelle explained, reaching up and dispelling both the map of Springfield above them and the barrier housing them all.

John and Della walked up the pristine concrete path through the largest cemetery in Springfield; even with Symphony of the Night the rows of headstones went on and on into the rolling hills. The criss-crossing concrete paths were abandoned despite the sun high in the sky.

“Guess nobody’s visiting their dead today,” Della remarked, manifesting a spectral telescope by curling her hand into the position of holding one. She surveyed the area with her eyes and John did the same with his ears. The wind rustling through the grass and bustle of the city behind them supported the abandonment Della suggested.

“Makes it easier for us.” Looking over at the glowing green telescope outlined in her hands, John asked, “Sure you should be doing that? We think we’re alone, but someone could be paying respects just out of sight. You don’t want to go through the hassle of reporting a leak.”

“For what we’re doing now, I’d just shoot ‘em. We’re on a high priority mission. ‘Sides, if they’re hanging around here, they’ve got much more than me to worry about,” Della responded, letting the telescope fall from her grip to the ground. It faded into a haze of tiny green particles the moment it left contact with her hands.

“You wouldn’t!” John gasped, scraping to a stop on the concrete and ripping the ‘wooden glasses’ off his face to look Della in the eyes.

For her part, the cowgirl merely shrugged. “What we’re doing here is important. We don’t have the time to attend to every mundie around.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be recklessly using your magic then,” John said through gritted teeth, resuming his walking pace and speeding up a bit to catch up to Della, who hadn’t paused a beat.

“Fine, fine.” Della dismissively waved away him and his concerns: “Hey, there’s a fork here, but the paths continue parallel. We should split up, we’ll finish in half the time and help Shelle finish hers.”

“We’re not exactly the foremost threats among the team here, we should stick together. It’ll be safer that way,” John replied, and continued under his breath, “for us and-”