"So… what does the general want?" I ventured somewhat hesitantly, still resting my head against the comfy armchair and ignoring Bronwynn's affronted look.
"It's a regular debrief," Glaustro replied. "Well… in a sense."
My head snapped up to glare at him. "In a sense? What does that mean?"
"Let me put it this way: we are to be assessed after our performance in Desire. Now, Crewe and Vallinach did their jobs. But they also lost a bunch of soldiers, got into a personal feud and almost made mistakes because of it, and generally… weren't that impressive."
"Riiiight," I drawled, absently mussing up Mia's hair in spite of her soft protests. She quieted down when I started scratching behind her cat ears anyway.
"And while I was technically under their leadership, I was never officially assigned under either of them, as you well know." Glaustro sighed, rubbing his hands down his face. "So, the general will be tabulating our achievements separately."
"Ah…"
"Ah, indeed. Crewe hasn't expressed any unhappiness with the arrangement since the general's intentions got out. Vallinach, on the other hand…"
"He never did like us," I mused.
"And we don't like him." Mia, suddenly far more alert, finished the sentence for me.
Glaustro nodded. "We don't. The problem is, he can still make our lives very uncomfortable. I mean, I'm probably getting a promotion soon. Which will drag you up along with me, so get ready for that, by the way. But Vallinach is still one of the four lieutenant generals. Then there's that inane rumor someone started."
"What rumor?" Mia asked.
To my surprise, Glaustro suddenly looked stricken, both by terror and by cautious hope.
It was Bronwynn who reluctantly answered. "Someone's saying that the general will be ascending to Duke status soon, and that he's looking for a successor to his position. They've also implied that he's been favoring Glaustro so much because Glaustro is the one who currently has Naberius' support to become the next general. Of the whole Legion of Torment."
My wide eyes found Glaustro quickly. My major had mostly managed to collect himself by then. Not fully, though. Not enough for me to miss the glint of desire and obsession in his eyes.
I mean, I got it.
Glaustro had had a rough start to his career. The sheer idea that he could rise to the top of the legion that had terrorized and marginalized him for a very long time… it must have been appealing.
Still…
"They want us dead," I growled angrily. "Whoever started that rumor wants us dead. I mean, even Crewe's going to go after our necks if the general ever actually shows his intention of letting you succeed him, right? All four of those insane idiots want that position. We're not strong enough to fight them and all their armies!"
I was getting more and more upset as I spoke. Assassins were one thing, but now they were trying to turn our entire legion against us. Dang it, if people in our own army heard about the rumor, I'd bet one or two jealous assholes would stab us in the back, just because.
At least Bronwynn was just as upset as I was. The air around his new feathers was getting visibly distorted by poisonous gases.
"Exactly," he growled. "Someone wants us dead. Badly. And it doesn't help that Conner is going around, praising us to high heavens —"
I raised my hand to cut him off. "Conner's doing what?"
Methialia jumped in. "Apparently, we came out of the invasion as 'the most exemplary unit to take part in the conflict.' His words. He got Desire to back him up on that officially, too, so we're expecting some very nice rewards during the debrief meeting. That's something at least, right?"
Methialia was going for forced cheerfulness, but I just wanted to groan.
The Abyss was rigidly structured. If a subordinate did something significant under the loose oversight of their superior, the superior would be the one earning the Merit for the whole thing.
I had personal experience to confirm this. On Breskwor, I had fought divine beings and even helped kill a goddess. I got no Merits for any of that. It didn't take a genius to figure out that so long as Glaustro was 'overseeing' a battle, I'd get nothing out of it as his subordinate. That was just how the Abyss functioned.
It was also why it was a big no-no to outshine your superiors during an invasion. You know, the way we had done.
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I groaned. Loudly and dramatically. I would have flopped back into a bed or something if I weren't pinned down in an armchair by an overgrown kitty cat.
"Are you sure it's not the lieutenant generals themselves behind all this? I bet they'd even feel justified parting our heads from our shoulders."
"We… aren't…" Glaustro wheezed out, looking ever more tired. "We don't know who it is, but someone has it out for us. In the past few days, I've personally dodged two poisoning attempts. Someone tried to ambush Bronwynn and Methialia while they were out together on some errands for me. And the Logistics Division has been throwing delay after delay in my face, even though I'm just submitting requests for basic pay and some supplies for our troops."
Logistics.
That sent an unpleasant jolt of fear and anger thrumming through my body.
I had so-called 'family' in the Logistics Division. In fact, the patriarch of my now extinct house, the one who had sold out his own world, was in charge of the department.
Melchom was an asshole of epic proportions who had somehow managed to install himself as one of the leaders of the legion, just under the level of the four lieutenant generals. I knew for a fact that he had schemed to get me killed early during my first invasion on Berlis and then quietly eliminated once I was reborn in the Abyss. He'd sent his descendant, my uncle Mercutio, to take care of it.
My only saving grace was how pathetically incapable Mercutio had been. Well, and the fact that I'd done enough by then to have some of Glaustro's support behind me. Without those things, I'd likely have been dead for real a long time ago.
"It… might not be the lieutenant generals after all," I declared morosely. "If it's logistics we're having issues with, then my 'family' might be involved. Melchom is after my ass. And he probably got a fire lit under his ass when he found out that I'm thriving under your command, Glaustro. Wouldn't surprise me if he was after you only because of me."
"Not your fault," Mia hissed, quite literally, then playfully batted my chin. "We'll keep you safe."
"Correct." Glaustro's eyes softened. "I doubt Melchom is brave enough to go after you like this if he didn't have support. He's been quiet so far, after all. So, even if he is the one orchestrating all the recent unpleasantness, it's only because he's got stronger backing. And I doubt he'd get that if the lieutenant generals weren't after us already."
That made some sense. But then again, my mother was dead already. My mother, who, by all the clues I'd been able to gather, was a very powerful demoness in her own right.
Otherwise, she couldn't have collected the entire library of grimoires she left for me. And there was definitely no way she could have gotten a soul blade if she hadn't reached a level at least equivalent to a lieutenant general. After all, while I was pretty sure that Crewe's axe was a soul weapon of some kind, I hadn't noticed the other three show off particularly impressive death implements of their own.
So…
Actually, how the hell did Melchom arrange for my mother's death in the first place?
From everything I knew, his rise to power in the Logistics Division was a relatively new development. It definitely happened after my mother's death. Then, where had he gotten the power and influence to kill a demoness who was probably at least a Viscount?
I groaned again, closing my eyes. "I'm getting a headache. I didn't know demons could get stress headaches. Why am I even worrying about all this politics nonsense? I decided to stick to you closer than a tick because I'm not good at the whole leadership thing."
I squinted my eyes open to glare at Glaustro. "You're the leader. You fix this! Or tell me who to kill to fix it."
Amusement snuck back onto my major's features. "Fine, then. We need the four lieutenant generals dead, with the possible exclusion of Crewe. Go get it done."
"That's not fair and you know it."
"Just like it's not fair of you to throw all the responsibility onto my shoulders. Either contribute to the planning, or follow your own idea of the ideal job distribution and get those assassinations up and running."
I grumbled under my breath, but I didn't heroically throw Mia off of me and march away to manifest the wishes of the major pain in my behind. I was annoyed, not suicidal.
"Fine, then. Anyone have any clues on how to fix this?" I asked the room at large.
Suddenly, Mia snuggled deeper into me and began to purr. This was an incredibly rare occurrence, and I could tell she was doing it to make me feel better, so I just watched her with startled eyes. I was literally worried to move for fear of startling her out of her kind gesture.
"We do have a plan, in fact," Glaustro replied. "We survive until the meeting. We attend it. And then, barring any nasty surprises on the general's part, we return to Breskwor and barricade our world off until this blows over. Or until we get a little stronger and more skilled."
"That's a lot of words to say 'we run like hell'," I muttered quietly, still reluctant to startle my kitty cat.
"Fine. We run like hell. Happy now?"
"Not at all. It's not like I'm going to get a better offer, though. You think it's too late to sell you off and join Vallinach?" I asked with obvious sarcasm in my voice.
The sarcasm was probably the only reason Mia simply dug her claws into my side, instead of shredding me to declare her displeasure at my joke. She didn't even stop purring!
"Considering how many times you two spat in his face when he made the offer? Probably." Glaustro sounded smug and not at all sorry for us, that jerk.
"Then I guess we're stuck with your plan."
"I guess you are. Anyway, we'll leave you two to rest. I know your resurrection was… far from ideal. That room over there is all yours, and properly padded with noise-cancelling enchantments, too."
"Yeah, wouldn't expect anything else from the Apple," I snarked. "Anyway, thanks. We both really could use a nap."
I wasn't even lying. The Divinity had helped, sure, in the sense that it had removed the raw edge from our soul wounds. But it was nowhere close to enough treatment for us to make a full recovery yet.
With minimal fuss on Mia's part, I lifted her up, only staggering a little as I carried her off to our bedroom. Bronwynn rushed ahead to hold the door open for me and closed it softly in our wake, leaving us alone and in relative safety.
I sighed, feeling the tension and stress of all the recent events melt off my shoulders a tiny bit. It was all still there, but it felt… lighter, more distant. Not quite as important as the fact that I was alive, Mia was alive, and we could hold each other as tight as we liked.
Which, to be fair, we were doing. The second I collapsed wearily onto the bed with her in my arms, she stretched out and hugged me back, burrowing ever closer into me.
I fell asleep with a smile, content to delay dealing with things for a bit longer.