Chapter 7: Delusional Murderer
Author's Note:
Alright so I've realized that basically, everyone hates OCs in fanfiction, and I feel the same way, but I don't want to be lashed to Britain, and Campione didn't do the best job developing the other Mage Associations, so I'm going to be using a couple of characters from Chivalry of a Failed Knight. They are the easiest to make conform to the world of Campione, and I'll attach images of them in a comment, but I figured this was a better solution when I want to tell stories in other countries. plus Chivalry has 10/10 character designs and pretty good backgrounds.
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The start of the term came and went, and with it, Erica settled into Hogwarts. She'd been placed into his year despite being a year older than him, most likely not wanting to be stuck in classes with strangers.
He quickly realized that his newfound magical power as a Campione, combined with [Eyes of the Lord] made it so that he could learn any spell after seeing it once. Harry quickly found himself growing bored with most classes due to the ease with which he learned everything, the primary exception being potions.
Dumbledore must have finally decided to put an end to Snape's bullying of him due to his new status because the man actually graded him fairly and didn't target him in class anymore. Harry could see it was killing him, but he was just happy to actually be able to learn a subject that ended up being fairly interesting now that the teacher wasn't targeting him.
He was also starting to get the sense that Hermione was onto him. When he started performing well above his former prowess in class she didn't even comment on it. She just gave him a searching look and went back to flipping through a book she'd gotten from Erica.
Regardless, he'd settled into the new year comfortably, and spending time with Erica, Ron, and Hermione had been fun. She'd fit into their group surprisingly well, all things considered. She and Hermione got along pretty well, and while Ron and she didn't have anything to really talk about they still were cordial.
Right now the group was at breakfast when Professor McGonagall came over to them. "Mr. Potter, Ms. Blandelli, Professor Dumbledore asks that you come to his office."
Harry and Erica shared a look, not really sure what the man could want from them at the moment. Shrugging, he stood up, Erica, following suit, while they bade farewell to Ron and Hermione and followed McGonagall toward Dumbledore's office.
Hermione narrowed her eyes, going back to reading her book. She'd looked into events in Rome while Harry was there, and there'd been a bomb set off in the coliseum that had ended with several people dead. The magical newspaper at the time had a completely different story though. It said that a Heretic God had attacked, which sent her into an entirely new area of research as she came upon the concept of Gods and Campione.
'What happened to you in Rome Harry?' she thought as she continued to look into the matter.
----
Erica and Harry sat down in Dumbledore's office, the man himself already sitting across from them looking through some papers.
"What's this about Dumbledore?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore reached over and grabbed a specific paper, passing it across the table to them before he spoke. "You said you wanted to help people, so I thought I'd bring this to your attention. That is a report on an individual known as Orleus-Gaule."
Harry picked up the paper and read through it to get an idea of what Dumbledore had in mind. Orleus-Gaule, also known as Or-Gaule, was a wizard living in a small village in France. On his 10th birthday, the entire town was sacrificed other than one individual in an attempt to summon a Heretic God. According to the one surviving person, his motivation was to become a Campione, although he failed to summon a god. Since then, there has been a rash of murders attributed to Or-Gaule, notably in places that house significant mythological objects.
Harry spoke, passing the paper to Erica so she could read it over. "I'm assuming that he's trying to summon another god then? He failed the first time, is there a possibility he will succeed?"
"This time is slightly different. Before, he was attempting to summon a God but didn't understand the process due to his age. There have been instances of Heretic Gods being intentionally summoned, most notably by the oldest Campione a few years ago, but the requirements are stringent. Instead, he recently stole an artifact that is said to imprison a god and seems to be attempting a ritual to free it."
Erica had finished reading by this point and joined the discussion. "So you want Harry to go put a stop to it before he causes a disaster."
"Yes, if you would be willing. I already have a portkey set up for his last known location. The other living individual from the first attempt has dedicated her life to tracking him down and is on-site for assistance as well."
Harry mulled it over, but he already knew he was going to go. This guy had been a mass murderer at the age of ten and he was trying to release a god that had been sealed away for a reason. That brought another question to mind though.
"How is it possible for a god to be sealed in the first place?"
Erica was the one who answered him. "It varies, but sometimes a Campione isn't able to beat a god so they seal it away in a grimoire. Other times, a Heretic God seals away another one if they come into conflict."
That brought to mind the image he'd seen of the death god imprisoned with the Deathly Hallows.
'I wonder which was the case for her.'
"Alright, I'll help. You said you already have a portkey set up?"
Dumbledore opened his desk and pulled out an envelope. "This will take you to a city a little ways away from Marseille, which is where Or-Gaule was last seen. The survivor of his last attempt is named Iris Ascarid, she should be somewhere in the city and can help if you run into her. I'll cover for you with your teachers in the meantime."
Harry nodded, and he and Erica took the portkey.
"Oh, and Harry. Do be wary, Lord Salvatore Doni was spotted not too far from there, but he vanished before contact could be made to see if he would resolve the matter. When Campione meet there are only three possible outcomes; they ignore each other, they form a pact of nonaggression, or they fight."
"I've met Lord Doni before, he is associated with the Copper-Black Cross after all. The most likely outcome is they fight," Erica interjected.
"Then I'd rather avoid him, I don't see the point in fighting. We'll keep an eye out," Harry said before they took the portkey and activated it.
----
The duo walked through the streets of the city they had ended up in, and something was immediately wrong. The streets were completely barren and shops were empty. It seemed like a complete ghost town.
"I can't sense anyone," Harry said after a moment of concentration.
Erica hummed, looking around for a bit. "Where do you think that girl Iris is?"
"I'm not sure, but let me try something."
Harry concentrated, drawing on his authority [Petulent Quagmire]. Rain clouds began to form in the sky, darkening the atmosphere before a light rain began to fall over the entire city. Harry was connected to his authority, so using it this way extended the range that he could sense through the raindrops.
"I've found someone, there seems to be one person surrounded by several others," he told Erica, but when he looked at her he found her looking unamused. She had been wearing a white blouse, which now had soaked through making it transparent.
"You did this on purpose," she insisted.
Harry smiled awkwardly before he controlled the water, pulling it out of Erica's clothes and leaving her dry despite the rain falling around them.
"If you wanted to see all you had to do was ask," Erica whispered slyly, her tone teasing.
Not one to let her get a leg up on him, Harry grinned and winked at her. "Well then, now I've got something to look forward to when we get back." Before Erica could comment on that, he took off running. "Come on, they're this way."
The two of them ran through the city streets towards the place where Harry had sensed a person. When they finally caught up to them, they came upon an interesting scene. A knight, decked out in a full set of black armor, was tearing through waves of people with a large black halberd.
Harry reacted right away at the sight of people being cut in two, their bodies falling to the ground, although oddly enough they never made a sound even as they died. Rushing forward, he channeled [Pillar of Humanity], his strength and speed growing as he barreled into the knight.
The knight turned to look at him, but Harry was too fast and they were quickly knocked away from the group of people and pinned to the wall of a building.
"Or-Gaule I presume," Harry said as he held the knight to the wall with one arm barring against the neck of the armor.
They didn't say anything at first, staring down at him with eerily glowing eyes. That was when Harry heard Erica call out to him.
"Behind you."
Chancing a glance behind him, he found the people that the knight had killed crawling towards him, even as they were completely bisected. Disembodied legs surged forward while torsos with no legs pulled themselves along with their arms. As Harry looked at the people's eyes, he realized they had suspiciously blank gazes.
"Let me go," the knight said, their voice echoing due to the armor. Harry thought about it for a moment, but looking at the odd people that were almost upon them, he decided he might have misjudged the situation and released them. The knight quickly picked up the halberd that had fallen to the ground and turned towards the surging people.
Erica had already summoned Cuore Di Leone and was standing next to them as they made contact, the knight tearing through them with ease. Meanwhile, Erica similarly decided to fight, having seen how they behaved she went straight for the kill as her sword pierced straight through their chests. Unfortunately, that still didn't seem to be enough to put them down as they continued to attack her even with their heart pierced.
Harry saw that they weren't getting anywhere and decided to take action. Calling on [Pestulent Quagmire] once again, he sent a wave of vapor out of his body which passed through Erica and the knight before continuing to the odd people. He could control its toxicity, so it didn't harm the two of them, but when it reached the enemy their bodies began to corrode, breaking down until they vanished into dust entirely.
Seeing that they were no longer being attacked, Harry turned to the knight, who was similarly looking at the two of them. "Are you Iris Ascarid?"
The knight tilted its head before nodding slowly. "Yes."
'Someone is not very talkative.'
"We're here to handle Or-Gaule," he explained.
The knight, now identified as Iris, shook her head and turned away. "I'll handle it."
"What were those people?" Erica asked, joining the conversation.
Iris fell silent, and Harry quickly realized that she was not one for longer explanations. "Puppets controlled by him. They were the population of this city, but now they aren't alive."
Erica and Harry shared a look, their countenance growing grim. If Or-Gaule had already done this to the entire population, then the situation had already completely fallen through. They'd come here to prevent another occurrence like this from happening, but at this point, all they could do was stop Or-Gaule before he released the god.
"Look, I'm a Campione. We can't let him release the sealed god, so we're going to be involved regardless. You might as well work with us," Harry tried, but Iris shook her head.
"My business to handle," was all she said before she took off running.
"Why can't anything ever be simple," Harry muttered as he and Erica took off running after her.
"What do you think her deal is?" he asked Erica as they went.
Erica thought about it a moment before responding. "I'd guess it has to do with revenge. She was the only survivor of Or-Gaule's first attack, so maybe she feels like she has to be the one to stop him this time."
"That's all fine and great, but if she fails then it becomes a lot bigger of an issue."
"Which is why we're following her. You can handle Or-Gaule and worst case scenario you can kill the god when it's unsealed."
The knight moved surprisingly quickly despite her bulky armor. As they followed her, keeping their distance to see where exactly she was going, they came across the dismembered bodies of more of the puppets, which Harry used his authority to eliminate completely as they began to attack once more.
Eventually, they were led to an old church, whose doors were completely blasted off the hinges. Making their way inside, they found Iris standing across from who they assumed to be Or-Gaule. He looked like a ten-year-old, despite the massacre he committed five years ago. He had long grayish-white hair and heterochromia; one of his eyes was blue while the other was red. He was wearing a hoodie and was grinning at Iris before his attention was drawn to the two of them.
"What a surprise, a Campione in addition to my dear sister. Quite the audience for my ascendance to your ranks," Or-Gaule said, his voice childlike but it had a bloodthirsty feeling within it.
'Well, that explains why Iris is so hell-bent on stopping him.'
"You make it sound easy to kill a god," Harry commented, but before Or-Gaule could respond, Iris lunged at him. Her black armor rattled as she surged forward, swinging her large halberd through the air toward the boy.
"Tch, you always were an impatient one," Or-Gaule said as he gestured with his hands, and Harry could vaguely see strings connected to his fingers that caused the church benches around them to animate, forming a wooden stake that pierced directly through the armor and out through Iris' stomach.
"Shit," Harry said, rushing forward to help her, but he stopped as Iris simply cut the stakes apart with her halberd, causing the wood to fall to the ground. A gaping wound could be seen clearly through her, but before their eyes, it closed up, and the armor regrew to cover the skin that was briefly visible.
"No one can say you aren't resilient, but my time has come, and not even you can stop it," Or-Gaule said, but Harry was already moving. He pushed off the ground rushing the boy and punched him with his full force, but his body just shattered, clattering to the ground and leaving nothing but a mannequin.
"Harry, over there," Erica called out and he whirled around, finding another Or-Gaule standing away.
"You cannot stop me, the moment is already at hand," he said and held up an ornate box with one hand. The other lifted up, and strings the color of blood formed in his hand which he pulled down, connecting it to the box and causing it to pulse with power. Harry tried to make his way over, but before he could act the box shattered open and a swirl of darkness exited from it, forming a figure in the air.
The darkness took the form of a large centipede with the face of a man. "Nyarlethotep," Or-Gaule breathed out and reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a medallion Harry could immediately tell was a grimoire.
"Now die," Or-Gaule said, and made to activate the grimoire, but before he could, Nyarlethotep's many legs enlarged and pierced forward, sending his head flying from his body. This seemed to have been another fake, as Or-Gaule reappeared across the room, panting.
"Did you really think I'd just let you kill me, boy?" Nyarlethotep spoke for the first time.
"You never had a choice in the matter," Or-Gaule said, but at this point, Harry had heard enough.
"Erica, you and Iris get Or-Gaule. I'll handle the god."
Iris seemed to have been waiting for her moment, as she moved forward, charging Or-Gaule and shoulder-checked him, sending him flying through the wall of the church. Erica quickly followed, sending him one last look before she exited. Nyarlethotep seemed content to watch before he addressed Harry.
"Well, then little Campione, I get to stretch my legs after being trapped so long by that damn butterfly. And my first meal is a premium one."
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