Chapters 56-60

Chapters 56-60

Wow, Thor honestly wasn't doing half bad against the stray devil I'd basically sicced on him. Yeah he was losing, but it wasn't an instant defeat like I thought it would be. Thor was deceptively quick on his feet and he was making the beast work for it. I could tell Thor was facing a low-tier bishop. It was quite large, as most strays were, but it seemed to be moving sluggishly as if it was struggling under its own body weight. I figured that was due to the bishop piece being the only evil piece that didn't enhance innate strength. All the power of the bishop piece went to magic. The stray devil had barely the strength of an average human, but it had some halfway decent magic reserves for its class.

"You are no match for the Mighty Thor, creature!" The stray that Thor was facing, like most of its kind, had obviously seen better days. It hardly had any semblance of a human form remaining and instead resembled some kind of monkey/naga hybrid. It had the upper body of a gorilla, but the legs were gone and replaced with a snake tail. I've said it before, but Ajuka was one messed up guy to implement this kind of punishment into his slaves' pieces.

The stray's voice kept alternating between hisses and growls. "YoU ArE nOt tHe rEal ThOr. YoU aRe MeAt!" It conjured a small fireball in its hand before launching it towards Thor. The mortal god rolled out of the way before the fireball hit where he was previously standing and exploded. The heat from the blast turned the nearby desert sand into glass, which exploded outwards as makeshift shrapnel.

"Uggh," Thor grunted in pain as a small bit of molten glass pelted him. Luckily he was able to cover his face and avoid being blinded. Before Thor could recover, the stray slithered closer before trying to hit Thor with a conjured ice blast this time. Thor was not lucky enough to dodge a second time as he was blasted by a wave of frost that sent him flying backward. His skin started to turn purple, and I figured if I didn't step in, he'd soon have frostbite.

"Y-you t-think s-some c-cold will s-stop me, monster!?" Thor said between shivers as he made to stand up again and keep fighting. Well, I wouldn't really call it fighting, as I had been watching the whole time and he had yet to actually land a single blow on the stray.

"I kILl YoU AnD EaT yOu nOw!"

"Alright, that's enough!" I declared as I swooped in and made my presence known. The low-tier devil had been so focused on its prey that it completely stopped sensing for anyone else. The bait tactic proving effective once again...

The monkey-faced devil let out a squawk of panic at seeing me descend with all six of my wings on display.

"nO! AnGeL! ThOUgHt YoU LeFt!?" It said fearfully as I conjured a light spear in my hand. I toned down the Light Energy in my weapon as I didn't want to one-shot the creature before I could interrogate it.

"You thought wrong, devil. Now you'll answer my questions!" I said as I hurled my spear downward. It struck true exactly where I was aiming. My spear pierced right through the naga tail and impaled it to the ground. The stray let out a shriek of pain as it was immobilized.

With it temporarily dealt with, I flew over to Thor, who was looking on the verge of keeling over. "SACRED GEAR!" I called out as TWILIGHT HEALING's green rings appeared on my hands. I started immediately healing Thor's frostbite, burns, and cuts.

"Lady Layla, you're a..." Thor seemed taken aback by my current appearance as he stared at me. "An Angel!? We had thought your kind vanished over a thousand years ago! My father searched for you and your Creator God for over a century but never found a trace of where you all vanished to! We thought you were all dead and that some Celestial had wiped out half of Midgard to do it."

Huh, wasn't that interesting? It seems that Father, along with the other Earth gods, had just up and left without so much as a "see you later" to the Asgardians. The Asgardians in this universe weren't technically even gods of Earth, so maybe they figured the ritual to split the world was none of their business. Odin, as the 'ruler' of the nine realms, probably would have made a move to stop it. I suppose in a way, he was the real ruler of the nine. In his prime, Odin was powerful enough that even Celestials feared him. The whole reason for the world being split in the first place was that Father and the other Earth gods wanted to hide away from the Celestials... or maybe even Odin himself.

Gods in DxD were really weak to be honest. The average 10 winged angel could match most lower level gods. And then Twelve winged Angels and the current Devil Maous were even stronger! They were able to kick the buts of most of the gods in the DxD world. It was only the strongest gods such as Indra or Shiva that were able to actually defeat Archangels and Maous. Even then, it would be a grueling fight that would leave them potentially too injured to risk such confrontations.

"Yeah, it was a whole thing honestly. I can tell you what happened later," I said to Thor before turning back to my current mission objective. The stray had not been idly waiting for its fate while I was healing Thor. It had been trying to pull my Lightspear out of its tail but wasn't able to because every time its monkey paws touched the weapon, they started burning.

"AhH. iT hUrTs so BaD!"

"Alright, devil, how the hell did you get here!?" I yelled at the creature as I conjured another Lightspear and pointed it towards the beast. This spear had a lot more Holy Energy inside it, and just bearing near the weapon was causing the weak devil to hiss in pain.

"nO! I tAlK! I TALK!" It squeaked out in fear. "iT wAs FaLlEn LiKe YoU! He SeNd mE hEre! I WaS a TeSt SuBjEcT hE SaY!" The stray hissed out in pain as I retracted my spear from its throat.

This stray was a test subject that was sent here? Who would even be able to do that besides... Big Brother Azazel! Of course! I knew he wouldn't just be sitting around and twiddling his thumbs after I disappeared during that artificial sacred gear experiment gone wrong. This whole time he must have been working on that space-time artificial sacred gear to try and find out where I ended up. If he managed to successfully get this stray devil to this side of the world, then he must be incredibly close to completing the gear as well!

"Take us to where you first appeared in this area, devil! If you do that, I'll let you go and even heal you." I lied. There was no way I was letting it go, but it didn't need to know that. The creature rapidly nodded its monkey head up and down. I willed my Lightspear impaling its snake tail to the ground to vanish, and the devil was temporarily freed.

"CoMe–FoLlOw. It WaS ThIs Way..." It started slowly slithering south of the small town. The hole in its tail guaranteed that it wasn't escaping. Something about stray devils was that most of them ended up losing the ability to summon their wings and fly.

"I thank you for healing me, my lady!" Thor said boisterously. "I must confess though... I have no idea what's going on..." Thor admitted to me. Yeah, I figured the guy must be pretty confused at this point.

"What do you want to know?" I said.

"Was this creature I fought a devil truly? I must confess, it has been a thousand years, but I vaguely remember them not looking like... that." Thor replied as we walked through the desert and followed the creature.

I once again gave Thor the rundown on what stray devils were, but this time he was listening with more rapt attention. "Thank you for your explanation once again, Lady Layla. I admit, we thought your pantheon was lost along with half of Midgard, so my studies were lacking."

I waved him off. "It's fine, and it's fine to admit you don't know something," I added.

Thor grimaced. "Indeed. I used to do just that, but then my brother Loki would always make fun of me for my lack of knowledge. Eventually, I just stopped asking questions altogether and started pretending like I knew all the answers..." Thor said as some kind of realization dawned on his face. "Hmm, I think I'm starting to see why my father cast me down to Midgard. Maybe me killing all the Frost Giants wasn't a great idea."

"Why'd you want to do that?" I asked him. I knew the answer already, but I wanted to see how accurate my movie knowledge was compared to this real world.

"Well, it all started when my coronation was interrupted by intruders in the treasury..." Thor started explaining as we kept walking through the desert.

XXX

In the underworld of the alternate Earth, Azazel, the leader of the Fallen Angels, had been conducting tests with his artificial space-time sacred gear to locate Layla. This sacred gear, similar to dimension lost, could teleport almost anywhere, even into the dimensional gap. Unfortunately, it had activated on its own in his lab, sucking Layla through the portal to an unknown location. Needless to say, the other Fallen Angels, who doted on their youngest sister, were not pleased with him.

"Sir! We just got a reading from one of the stray devils we sent through. Subject S-35 has been killed," Azazel's assistant, Penemue, said, examining the readings on the lab equipment in front of her.

"So what?" Azazel replied. "Many of the strays we've sent have been killed."

"Yes, but none died due to Angel Light!" she exclaimed, excitement lighting up her face. Penemue was certain Layla had killed that stray. After over a month, they finally found Layla's location.

Azazel was ecstatic that they had found his missing sister. Now, Gabriel and Michael would stop nagging him, and he could bring Layla home.

"Quick! Enter the coordinates of where we sent S-35! It's time to bring our sister home."

...

"Aggh! LiAr!" The stray screamed in pain as my Lightspear dealt a fatal blow. I no longer had use for the creature, and it was far too dangerous to let go. Azazel had sent it here as a test subject, but he hadn't considered there might be innocent people wherever he sent the creature. It had devoured over nine people, and those deaths were partially on Azazel. I would make sure he made up for them in the future.

[Quest completed! You have leveled up!]

Thor shot me a disapproving look for executing the devil. "You promised to spare it. Not doing so was dishonorable."

"Thor, it was a monster that literally ate people to sustain itself. There was no way I could spare it. And if we're talking about dishonorable acts, there are quite a few tales of your youthful adventures. What about the time you dressed as a bride to get your stolen hammer back from the Giant Thyrm–"

"We do not speak of that incident!" Thor exclaimed, his face red in embarrassment. "How do you even know about such a thing?"

"It's in pretty much every Norse mythology book. Pretty much everyone who studied that history knows..." I said, and his face turned mortified.

"Damn you Loki for telling everyone about that incident!" Thor cursed and shook his fist towards the sky. Heimdal was probably cracking up right now if he was spying on us.

"Anyway... moving on. Help me search for clues around here." I gestured to the rocky desert terrain that the devil had led us to. It claimed that this was where he had been dropped off, so there might be some clues to find." I explained.

"Clues?" Thor asked. "Will more of those beasts appear from here? We must stop them if that is the case! I can't risk Lady Jane being placed in danger!"

"You must really like the girl, huh? Didn't you just meet her?" I asked. The relationship between Thor and Jane was always a bit strange to me. They only knew each other for a few days, yet they were willing to die for each other. I guess when you know you've found the right one... My thoughts once again drifted off to Natasha and whether we simply had a fling or something else. She had been out of contact for a while after all.

"Lady Layla, what is that!?" Thor's voice exclaimed from behind a few boulders. I quickly ran around them, and my eyes widened at what I saw! There was a blue swirling portal forming right in front of us. It was growing wider by the second as arcs of electricity formed around it. I grabbed Thor and pulled us backward in case Azazel was sending another test stray devil through.

That wasn't the case, though, as a familiar pair of Fallen Angels stepped through the arcing blue portal. "Sister Penemue and Brother Azazel!" I exclaimed as I ran forward to greet the pair that had stepped through. They had actually done it! They created a successful portal between our worlds.

"Layla!" Penemue's eyes widened in happiness before she enveloped me in a hug. "I'm so glad you're okay! You had no idea how worried everyone was when the moron over there sent you away!" She said, glaring at Azazel. Penemue was a tall woman with the same features as myself. Out of all the other Fallen, you could honestly say that she and I resembled each other the most except that she was a full head taller than me.

"Hey, I'm sorry, alright. Besides, it looks like Layla is totally fine. If anything, she seems better than fine. Looks like you've gained some wings there, huh?" Azazel said with a smirk, clearly noticing my rise in power. The portal closed behind him, and he stepped forward, giving me a hug after Penemue begrudgingly let me go. "I'm really sorry about everything."

"It's fine; if anything, it finally got me to go outside again and have an adventure!" I exclaimed. I had quite a bit to tell them about.

"Indeed! Nothing beats a good adventure!" Thor boisterously made his presence known from the side.

My two older siblings turned to him.

"Thor!?" Azazel said the man's name in surprise. "What are you doing here? And why do you feel so... weak?"

"Ah, I angered my father by trying to destroy Jotunheim, and he sealed my power and dumped me on Midgard to repent. As Lady Layla would say, it was a whole thing..." The two of them gave him confused looks at his remark, but chose to not comment further.

"Well, thank you for watching out for our little sister, Prince Thor, but we really must be going back before–" Penemue said, turning around toward where the portal had appeared. Her face turned ashen upon not seeing the blue portal there anymore. "Oh, shit..."

Azazel turned around as well. His expression looked a bit grim at the missing portal. "Well... that wasn't supposed to happen."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"The portal was supposed to last at least an hour before closing... we're stuck here," Azazel said. "Whoops, it appears my calculations were a bit off again. Looks like my gear wasn't quite ready yet." He laughed as he explained the situation. Penemue looked like she wanted to absolutely throttle our faction's leader.

XXX

Well, I'm sure this made quite the sight for the spectators. I discovered where the majority of the small town's people congregate during the hot weather – here in this local diner. We had quite a few people gawking at us and some even filming us as we ate.

"This food is quite exquisite! Lady Jane took me here when I first awoke in this realm. This must be quite a high-end eatery for so many people to be here," Thor said, finishing his fourth plate of pancakes.

"I have to say this is absolutely fascinating..." Azazel said, looking around. "Two separate Earths, separated by 1000 years, and yet they still developed almost identically."

"It is quite mind-boggling. Although the two Earths are not exactly the same. This one does seem to have a few countries that ours does not. For example, I've never heard of this Wakanda country in Africa. There's also the small country of Latveria in Europe that our Earth doesn't have."

I took a bite of the toast. It was alright for a diner in the literal middle of nowhere; I'm not exactly sure what Thor was so excited about. "It's getting kind of confusing to keep referring to the two Earth halves like that. From now on, our Earth is known as the DxD Earth and this one is the Marvel Earth," I said. The two other Fallen gave me inquisitive glances.

"Why those names?" Azazel asked.

"This one is Marvel because it has Aliens and tons of other cool stuff and ours is DxD because of the two Dragons guarding the dimensional gap."

"Get rid of her bro..." I said to Azazel.

"No problem," Azazel replied as he held up his hand to her face. She gulped in fear and tried to escape but it was far too late for that. There was a flash of golden light followed by a scream before Jane stumbled and almost fell over. She clutched her head and started hyperventilating.

"Holy shit, that was so weird! It was like I was in my body, but it was walking and talking on its own!" The real Jane said. "I didn't think The Exorcist was a real thing! I'm a woman of science!" She shouted angrily to no one in particular. She actually seemed relatively fine, all things considered.

"I'm not exactly sure what just happened, but thank you for your help, Sir Azazel," Thor said as he genuinely bowed to my brother. Azazel waved him off, saying it was no trouble.

"Those damn celestials... always causing trouble. It looks like one of them peered into the future and decided to target your future bride, Thor," Azazel explained.

...What? Is that what Azazel thought happened just now?

"Figures it was them. They're the only beings I know of that would try something like that. There was a reason even father feared them." Penemue further added on to Azazel's misunderstanding of the situation...

You know what? I'll take it. Explaining the gamer system and alternate universes is a can of worms I'm not opening for a long time. Thor also seemed to accept their explanation as he let out a few choice expletives targeted at the celestials. Celestials must be just complete assholes in this universe.

[Ego did try to devour hundreds of worlds at once ...or should I say is going to try?]

Oh right. You should give me a quest for that before it happens. I want to be the one to kill that guy. The quest rewards would be pretty good I imagine.

[You got it.]

"Future bride!?" Jane exclaimed with a red face. It took her a moment to register what was even going on and then what Azazel had said. "I just met Thor yesterday! I'm not marrying him!" She declared. Thor was looking excited at hearing he would one day marry 'Lady Jane' before he slumped down in sadness at hearing her declaration.

...

[Emergency Quest completed! You have leveled up! You have gained a skill-up point. You can use it to raise any of your skills by one level.]

Nice! I now had a lot of free stat points available to me. I'm pretty sure I was sitting on 30 after not using them from three relatively quick level-ups.

[Name: Layla of the Fallen]

[Title: Angel of Hope]

[Level: 7]

[HP: 3100]

[MP: 610]

[Vigor: 110]

[Strength: 25]

[Intelligence: 61]

[Luck: 20]

[Skills: Observe 1, Angelic Mastery 3, Acting 3, Light Manipulation 4, HP to MP conversion]

[Perks: Never Tell Me the Odds, Mana Siphoner]

[Drawbacks: Sin of Lust]

[Available Free Stat Points: 30]

[Skill Up Point: +1]

XXX

"Welcome to the secret base that's not so secret!" I exclaimed as I emerged from inside Jane's van, where we were all comically piled in. We had just arrived at the makeshift SHIELD base that was put up around Thor's hammer to study it. The agents guarding the gates were giving us all weird looks, but they did recognize me. No surprise there, really.

"Agent Coulson has been notified of your arrival. You all can go through." The barricade lifted, and we drove on through.

"Are these the guys who stole all my research notes and equipment?" Jane asked. "That's the only reason I agreed to even drive you all here..." She had claimed that she had had enough of the Supernatural for a while and initially refused to go. That was until I told her where all of her stuff had been taken.

"This place is pretty high tech." Noted Azazel, who was riding in the back of the van. And wasn't that a comical sight. The leader of our faction was delegated to the backseat. I had called shotgun before we all got in...

"Indeed," Penemue added. "The technology on Earth Marvel appears to be more advanced than Earth Dxd." She said using our agreed-upon names for the two Earths. The difference in technology probably came from Alien influence, to be honest. Dxd was completely cut off from more advanced extraplanetary civilizations, while Earth Marvel has been visited by aliens numerous times. I mean, there's an alien sitting in the van right now.

Jane drove us a bit further into the compound before we saw Agent Coulson standing off to the side of the dirt road. I had to hand it to Jane; she picked a really comfortable ride. I looked up her van, and it ran upwards of 100K USD. She pulled over, and we all piled out.

"Hello again, Agent Coulson!" I said cheerfully.

"Hello again, Layla... and company." He said, eyeing our group.

Jane marched up to him, looking ticked off. "You there! I want my research equipment back! Right now!" She demanded. Jane had had quite the trying day...

Coulson looked like he was about to argue something before he sighed and relented. He called another agent over to escort her to her equipment and help her load it all back into her van. "So who might the rest of your entourage be?" he said, eyeing Penemue especially. It wasn't because of her beauty – well, it might have been a little. It was mostly because he could obviously see the resemblance between her and myself.

"Allow me to introduce everyone. This is Thor, Prince of Asgard."

"Yes... it's nice to meet you too, 'Prince Thor.'" Coulson said before he shot me a look. "You know, a few YouTube videos just surfaced a few hours ago starring everyone's new favorite Angel and an apparent alien god. Once again, you've completely taken over all media as you've exposed aliens to the world." Coulson said, deadpanning at me.

Woops... well, at this point, how much more can people even freak out about? It might just be me, but I feel like people would be more freaked out about the existence of heaven and hell over aliens. On the upside, average crime has apparently been WAY down since my big park reveal. Churches have also been packed every Sunday as well... I don't know how long that will really last though. People tend to be... forgetful.

"Nice to meet you, Son of Coul. On the way here, Layla told us you were one of the most trustworthy agents of the spy organization known as SHIELD. I know the importance of spies, as my father employs them to monitor the nine realms." Thor said cheerfully as he walked over to Coulson and clapped the man on the shoulder in greeting.

"Well... that little tidbit about Odin wasn't ominous at all..." I muttered. "Moving on, to the right of me is my beautiful older sister, Penemue, and to the left is Azazel, the leader of the Fallen Angels."

"T-the leader?" Coulson stuttered out. "...And a name mentioned from the Bible as well..." He took a second to steady himself from an introduction he was not ready for. "N-nice to meet you both and welcome back to Earth?"

"Thank you, it's good to be back." Azazel said as the two men shook hands. "Wasn't sure I'd ever see the larger universe again, but here we are. This Earth has a few problems I can sense, but I'm sure it'll all work itself out once the two halves reconnect." Azazel added with an unusually serious tone. Coulson didn't like the sound of that, but I could see he chose not to comment. I wondered what Azazel was sensing that caused him to momentarily lose his carefree demeanor?

"It's nice to meet you. I'm Penemue, and it's my job to keep our leader from embarrassing our faction on the regular." She said as Azazel shot her a betrayed look while I snickered.

"Well, now that introductions are out of the way, what brings you all here?" Coulson asked.

"We are here for my hammer!" Thor declared. "I can sense Mjolnir nearby. It's waiting for me to reclaim it! Let us go to it post haste." Thor said as he marched towards the center of the facility. If he was able to sense his hammer's power, I figured that was a good sign. Maybe he was close to being worthy again.

As the rest of us followed behind the excited blond Asgardian, Coulson turned to me in question. "So did you take care of the 'cannibal' problem plaguing the town?"

"Yes... it was a stray devil, sent here by my foolish brother who didn't know any better." I said, turning to Azazel and leveling a glare at him. Coulson looked confused until Azazel spoke.

"I apologize. In order to locate the dimension my wayward younger sister had ended up in, I used a bunch of captured stray devils as test subjects for my artificial spacetime sacred gear. I never really thought about what those devils could do if they ended up in locations full of people." Azazel said, and he truly looked ashamed. "Needless to say, I will make restitution to the families of the victims."

"As soon as we once again have access to our resources, we will be donating 100 million USD to each family who lost someone." Penemue added, and I whistled at the number. Azazel did kind of mess up bad there. Nine people were dead because of him.

What I wondered about was what happened to the other few dozen strays he had sent out before he finally found the correct dimension. Did they end up on alternate Earths?

"Mjolnir!" My pondering was interrupted by a jubilant Thor as he ran up to his hammer in glee. "It's only been a short while, but I have missed you!" He spoke to the hammer like it was sentient. I wasn't really sure whether it actually was or not. The sky above started to rumble as Thor approached the hammer. Lightning started flashing in storm clouds that formed out of nowhere. Thor grasped the handle of his hammer and pulled...

...it actually moved, but only a teensy bit sadly. He wasn't fully worthy yet. I didn't think he was, to be honest.

"No!" He wailed in sadness as it started dramatically raining. I conjured an umbrella made of light above us all to stop from getting soaked.

"I see your light manipulation has definitely improved since you've been gone. Well done, Layla." Penemue praised me.

"Thank you!" I preened.

"So what do we do about him?" Coulson asked as we looked upon the sobbing Thor, who was grasping his unmoving hammer and now soaking wet and covered in mud.

I let out a sigh. "I guess I'll handle this." I told them all before I walked over to the depressed god of thunder. "Come on, Thor, it's not that big of a deal. So you're not worthy right now. No big deal. Your hammer budged a little bit when you first grasped it. That must mean you're really close to being worthy again. I guarantee a few more days of reformation and you'll be calling down thunderbolts in no time." I said to him as I gave him an encouraging smile.

Thor took his eyes off his weapon and looked at me. "You're right... I suppose I have no reason to rush anyway. It's not like Asgard will fall apart without me. Father and brother are still there holding the realm together."

"If only that were true, brother." A voice came out of nowhere, causing us all to jump. I spun around and saw Loki, dressed in his iconic green and gold armor, standing nearby. Well, it wasn't really him but a projection. I didn't sense any magical power from the Loki in front of us, and Azazel and Penemue didn't appear to be on guard at all.

"Loki, it's good to see you again, brother!" Thor exclaimed. "Good news, Mjolnir has almost found me worthy again. My exile shouldn't last much longer, as soon I'll have my powers restored. Tell mother not to worry about me as I'm here among new friends."

I could see an incredibly quick moment of surprise and realization dawning upon Loki's face at Thor's proclamation. It appeared he didn't expect Thor to be going back to Asgard so soon. "Is that so, brother? Well then, I await your return with bated breath. I'm sure mother and... father will as well." Loki finished before his projection abruptly faded away. He had completely gone off script and never mentioned anything about Odin being dead at all. That must have been because of Thor's proclamation. I wondered what Loki would do now.

[Probably sick The Destroyer on you all immediately before Thor gets his powers back...]

Yeah... that's probably gonna happen isn't it?

XXX