I gave a wide yawn as I tried to walk out of my house before I got stopped by the wicked she-witch, ahem, I mean my wife… seems I had ‘forgotten’ my tie again…

I wonder when she’ll find out that I just took them off once I got at work. Ties were neat and I actually loved neat appearances and suits… it’s just I didn’t have the personality or appearance to pull that look off myself.

“Seriously, every time… one day you are going to learn how to do your own ties properly.” I just nodded along with half my brain listening and the other half ignoring. I got the same spiel everyday after all.

“Yes, yes, I understand honey… I’ll be home late today, that annoying project of mine got into trouble again.” I said with a sigh thinking about that annoying kid.

“Stop calling the boy ‘that annoying project’. He’s a person with a name, even if you haven’t told me it out of professional courtesy.” I sighed at her words as I looked at her… smaller than I was, with her long black hair let loose behind her, I smiled as I gave her a small kiss (she was surprised as always when I initiated any form of intimacy) and smiled at her even as I let one of my hands run through her hair.

“I know… it just makes it easier… but thank you. For ending up with someone like me.” I said as she blushed a bit and I held in a chuckle as I kneeled down a bit, and placed an ear to my wife’s enlarged belly… and within moments, I felt a small hit to my face and smiled… he’s got a good kick already.

“Now that’s rare… what’s going on?” she asked and I stood and opened the door, even as internally I wanted to sigh at how she seemed suspicious of my actions.

“Some annoyance at work other than him…but there is nothing to worry about. I love you.” I greeted as my wife, Sera Fife, sighed before smiling.

“I love you too. Say high to Chayton for me.” I nodded as I closed the door and let loose another yawn before getting into my car… good, I’m back to being ‘that lazy, scarily professional Commander Fife’. Makes me wonder when Sera would go back to being ‘Captain Olivia of the Special Operations Command’… but she didn’t do that anymore…

I caused her a lot of problems back then… I was more punctual, neater, even more efficient than I am now… but I’d do the most outrageous of things and end up in dangerous situations… but she’d always pull me out.

If it weren’t for the fact that I think she’s safer out of the Dungeon, I’d take her along for the fact that there would be no one I’d rather trust… but she also did not have a LEV so that avenue was out… unfortunately…

Within twenty minutes I was at the building President Clayton was staying in during his time here in New York (which was mostly to watch, ‘my annoying project’, aka Arthur Clive) and I walked into his office… to see him playing Final Fantasy 13 with a sigh… since the Dungeon appeared, he’s been playing games more often… as in, he never really played before.

“Ah, Agent Fife… I guess its meeting time. Where’s Agent Grey?” Ah, yes… the Rookie is what we all called him. You could call him brash, young, quick to panic… but surprisingly cool headed in a pinch… that would best describe the youngest agent.

“Agent Grey is our liaison with Arthur Clive sir, he’s busy discussing with them about the incident that occurred yesterday… though I have the general idea.” I admitted and Clayton nodded… before I could continue-

“Oh yes, Sera says hello.” I added quickly, and Clayton chuckled that deep baritone laugh of his as he finished a fight with five stars and looked for a save point.

“Well, someone is whipped.” I ignored the jab even as I sorted through the information I was given.

“Right, well, yesterday we found that Arthur Fife and his Team Caliburn (I ignored the grumbling of the President that Caliburn sounded British due to its origins… but considering their leader, I accepted it) were going to go fight the second Demon Lord, who we have verified as Ignus.” I took a breath.

“Ignus was a fire based Demon Lord, much like the previous one, it seemed to be a much stronger form of another Demon, in this case, Wisps. Ignus resembled a Wisp at its core and had a giant amount of fire with which it created two, and later four, appendages similar to arms which could morph into suitable shapes such as hammers, swords, scythes, and even a morning-star at one point.” I explained the general appearance for the sake of it, Clayton liked knowing these things seeing as he’d likely never see them. It was a small thing, but he enjoyed it and I didn’t mind, despite how tedious it was, I enjoyed explaining things.

“Before fighting the Demon Lord though… Team Caliburn ran into another team… a team that entered the Dungeon in Japan.” I explained as Clayton finally switched off the game after finding a save point, a frown on his face now.

“…So they met a team that entered the Dungeon in a different country entirely… that is an issue… could they understand each other?” I hadn’t known how to get to this bit of information, but at least Clayton opened the avenue.

“Yes, they could communicate. The Demon Lord, Ignus, clarified that the Dungeon itself is actually the repurposed Tower of Babel, and that within the tower, communication between any living beings is possible, no matter the beings own communication issues.” Much like Clayton was now, I was surprised at this information… that was something we hadn’t known… and apparently writing acted the same, it was understandable and easy on the eyes for readers.

“Well… that’s interesting… perhaps someday international peace talks could be conducted in such a manner, without the use of translators…” I nodded, a tiny smile on my face at the thought process of my President… he was a good one.

“Ahem, as I was saying, Team Caliburn realized that more teams from other countries would likely approach soon, and they soon had six teams total between them. The countries included us, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom and a gathering of South Africans, though the people themselves say their leader isn’t South African and one of their members is actually part Irish or something.” I really wasn’t sure because apparently that person himself wasn’t sure…

“Well… the three big Superpowers of the world are included there, the monetary super power that is Saudi Arabia, the land of gamers that Japan is, and the underdog South Africa huh… interesting. I take it the Russian team and the Saudi Arabian team disliked us?” I nodded a bit with an awkward smile on my face… yeah… America was a brilliant country, don’t get me wrong, but we Americans weren’t always liked outside of our country… some even exaggerated it a bit (you Americans are all –insert bad stereotype here-)

I personally blamed it on that saying; the tall tree catches the most wind. As the acclaimed ‘greatest super power’ we also get the greatest attention, good and bad. In this case, the people we got bad attention was from our rival superpower, and a near constant warzone we were involved in…

“Ah… yes sir. They were all willing to look past those issues and work together to defeat the Demon Lord, with Arthur Clive dealing the last blow though.” I added as Clayton nodded with a smile… figures it would make good press when we finally reveal Clive to the world. ‘See the man who killed two Demon Lords with only a tiny knife!’

The fact that Clive has two Animarum (plural for Anima, which was Latin for Soul) was something I didn’t discuss, or openly mention, ever. It was strange and disturbing, but until I found out what that meant, I wouldn’t deal with it, not even to Clayton until I found out what that meant… if it was what I think it was, there would be an issue.

“Good, good… but still, this incident itself isn’t.” I agreed with the President’s notice and nodded.

“Indeed, the Demon Lord dropped six items luckily, but the distribution was a bit fuzzy… Team Caliburn ended up taking one of the three Soul Gems that dropped, while Gauntlets went to the Russians, a small orb with a flame inside it went to the African team, and a skull shaped mask went towards the Japanese team, the British and Saudi Arabian teams both choosing the Soul Gems for their own reasons.” I explained the distribution of items before I continued to the main issue.

“The problem was that if this happened again there wouldn’t be some easy solution, what if the Demon Lord had only dropped one item? There would most certainly be an issue then…” I said as Clayton sighed, tapping his desk…

“A UN meeting will be called soon. This will be discussed there. All countries will be allowed to bring three guards as well as the leader of their top team. In our case, I’ll be bringing along you, Agent Dante, Agent Grey and Arthur.” He explained as I nodded. It’s a good thing, as this would clear up the air between the different countries… after all, our enemies weren’t each other anymore.

“Oh yes, I heard that your Russian acquaintance was there… how strong is he now?” I frowned at the words of Clayton before remembering the man in question, Albert Ivankov… I had worked with him before, in the rare case where the U.S and Russia deemed one project to be mutually beneficial when it came to military.

The man was professional, but extremely distasteful for me (I absently noted that his magic had the wood Element and blamed that, considering I had both a lightning Affinity and a light affinity) to talk to… he hated me for something I had no part in, and I disliked him for hating me, it was a vicious cycle really.

“Yes, he was the leader of the Russian Team… apparently after the distribution of the items, he spoke to Arthur Clive in questioning about me… no information was given other than the fact that he knew me though.” I held my hand to my left wrist, feeling the raised bumps which read LEV 49… Clayton caught my action and gave me a small smile.

“Had Arthur not appeared… we both know you would have been there instead.” I knew and nodded… at this point, I was just a back-up, an extra in case Clive died so that America would still have someone in the running… but I didn’t want to be in the running…

As much as I am disturbed by Clive, I don’t want him to die… not when he wasn’t even twenty yet, and unaware of what he was in for when he killed that first Demon Lord.

“Ahem… yes sir… oh yes, I had Agent Grey research some incidents, he should-” speak of the devil (uh… Chronos) and he shall appear as they say… there Agent Grey walked in after knocking politely, a file in his hand as I waved my hand when he nodded.

“Good morning Commander, Mr President Sir. I’ve gotten the report on the incidents going on around the country.” I nodded, my face becoming stern as I thought to the ‘incidents’ I had Grey look out for… Well, I say incident, but we were attempting a news blackout when it came to that information…

Who would want to be told that asylums and jails were being destroyed or having their inmates escaped, and happening all over the country ever since the LEV’s appeared?

People expected jails and asylums to be impenetrable and safe to keep ‘normal’ people away from ‘dangerous’ people… the fact that we weren’t doing that, would be a black spot on our (and by our, I mean President Clayton) record.

“Right, we’ve run checks on dates rather than check how many inmates and patients escaped, as there is an extremely large amount, though I have heard that our country isn’t the only one with that issue… but considering the size of our prisons and asylums… anyway, I checked the dates of the attacks and breakouts, and cross-referenced it to maps.” I was impressed at the kid’s data gathering skills; apparently the skill grew from a strange need to find out how to beat levels in video games… weird where skills can come from.

“Once I did that, and with a bit of guesswork…” he opened the file and pulled out a folded A3 sized map of our country, showing different dots in different colours as he pointed to a small cluster of black dots.

“Here, these dots are all from the first ten days after LEV’s were earned, then purple would be the next ten, then blue, then red. See how the black dots are all clustered around this area? That would mean that something or someone broke out of one of these places and then orchestrated the rest afterwards…” he seemed uncertain as I looked closer to the map…

“But judging from the distance, and the fact that some of these happened on the same day, the day after we got LEV’s… none of them happened on that day, and none of these places had records of escapees on that day?” I asked in confusion as Agent Grey nodded with his own frown matching the one on my face.

“Indeed sir… that’s the issue. It means that it can’t be someone from inside one of these asylums, but some organized group… but to suddenly organize something in that one day and then break everything out, would require military level training or preparation for a group to launch simultaneous strikes like this…” I heard what he said, then snapped my fingers to bring attention to me as I pointed to the ‘small’ gap between the black dots.

“Here. What’s in this place?” I asked as Agent Grey looked at the exact spot… then he widened his eyes and palmed his chin as he looked to me.

“That place is private property, who owns it, I hadn’t checked, but it’s big… big enough to hold a facility of some kind… perhaps even for training?” he added as I nodded.

“Yeah… it might not be, it might even just be a group of people who tried their luck and got away with it, but I’d like you to check that out.” He nodded, closed the folder, nodded at both Clayton and I, and then left… good kid.

“Really now… we’re already dealing with demons from Hell, why do we need to deal with humanity as well?” Clayton asked as I sighed, thinking back to my time in the military…

“Sir… sometimes it is not the darkness around us, but the darkness inside of us that is terrifying.” I added as he blinked at my words.

“Who quoted that?” he asked as I shrugged. Heck if I knew, I was pulling out words from thin air to explain my thoughts really…

“Myself, but what I was trying to say, sir, was that it’s often man itself who is the monster.” I explained, remembering one incident that made me feel like puking every time I thought about it… strapping bombs to a child asking for water…

There is a place in Hell for demons apparently… but I think Hell is a bit too kind of a place for the people I killed then.

“…Right… of course. We of mankind are warmongers after all… we thrive of fighting even when warfare is our most raw and horrible state.” I smirked at Clayton even as I shook my head.

“I think we should licence these quotes or something… maybe another time though.” I said, and Clayton agreed with me… hopefully… hopefully we’d win. Hopefully we’d all live to see Chronos die…

Before that though, we’d need to deal with what was soon to come… after all, this war is just getting started… this act hasn’t even begun yet, for the curtain… yes, the curtain opens… slowly… and ominously.