Power UP

A/N: Yeah, I know. Nothing to say in my defence, besides just a minimun wage job that's not fit for me and leave me unable to really write most of the time. I'm on holiday for a bit, so I promise — I PROMISE on this mother of mine that more chapters are coming soon, at least as much as before if not more. Plus I'm hype for the future events of the story.

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"What do you want..." Riser replied weakly, his face numb. Not answering to Julian's stunt.

"Hmm... Well, my winning of our bet would be great, I suppose. Luckily, your father's already on it. So I'm here for another thing." With a nonchalent swing of his hand, he lit up the lights within the room. And with another, materialized a chair made of wood and sat on it.

"Firstly, as per our bet. You have to obey one of my order, and what I'll make you do is apologize to Rias and every member of her peerage personally. Secondly, I want to know... Why did you do that?"

An oppressive silence settled down as Julian waited for an answer, staring unwaveringly into Riser's eyes all the while.

Knowing well of what Julian was talking about, Riser swallowed nervously. "I- I can't say."

Hearing that, Julian frowned for a bit before grinning. "Oh, but no need to say anything. I got everything I needed from your answer."

"History belonging to the winner, your 'cowardly' attack wouldn't have affected you much in the case it succesfully eliminated me. In contrary, it would have been quite humiliating for me to lose in such a manner after my confident display. But simply from what you had to lose if your ambush wasn't to succeed — which it didn't — there had to be some kind of motivation for you to take the risk."

After shifting his gaze briefly to Ravel before putting it back on Riser, Julian continued. "I know you're not that dumb to discard what from our brief time together I know to be your most precious thing — your pride — for no reason other than winning a little bet. And even if you were, you'd have Ravel to compensate."

Leaning forward in his chair, Julian concluded. "From knowing that, I can deduce that an outside party has an hand on this, one who gave you the motivation to discard your most precious thing. And from knowing who would want to see me humiliated, I can reduce the scope of the possible culprit by a lot. And finally, by sorting those who have the power or standing to dare scheme against a son of Lucifer and offer you something worthwhile from those who have not. Only one possible suspect remains."

"It was Diodora Astaroth, wasn't it? The one who gave that 'motivation." His smile becoming cold, Julian rethorically asked.

Seeing Riser's unbelieving face, Julian's face loosened and he sighed. "So it is him after all... Now that the cat is out of the bag, what did he offer you?"

"He promised me power if I succeeded... And a chance to meet... Someone incomparably powerfull. Someone of such magnitude that I otherwise would never meet." After several seconds to regain his composure, Riser's confessed weakly. Visibly deflating into his bed.

Thinking of something, Julian asked. "Did he shows you this 'power' he could gives you? And did he tell you the identity of the being you would meet?"

"Yes. And no." Riser courtly answered, his eyes darkly alight with something: fear.

"He did? Really now?" Julian bursted out, beginning to laugh loudly to the confusion of the people present.

"That's great..." Really, it just gave him the perfect alibi to dispatch Diodora at the first opportunity.

Sighing, he smiled slightly. "Now that I have the context behind this doubtful sneak attack of yours. I got to say that you were lucky to lose Riser. Very lucky..."

His eyes darting across the room and evading Julian's eyes, Riser tensed. "W-what do you mean?"

Squinting a bit, Julian eyed every members of Riser's peerage. Seeing them reacting to his every words with utter confusion unlike Riser, he spoke. "So you know some things, huh? And you didn't even inform your peerage of it? You're playing a dangerous game. One you are lucky you were forced to stop playing."

Shrugging, Julian leaned back. "Well, doesn't matter anymore. Diodora probably won't give you another chance. And if he does, well..."

Shaking his head. He let the the rest unsaid. "I initially came here for one thing: knowing why you discarded your pride for a cheap shot to winning against me. But since your father pleaded, and considering the good relationship between him and Sirzechs. I have to inform you that I don't hold any grudge against what you did. If you had won, that'll be another story, but since all went well in the end. That's that."

With a grins, he followed. "After all, and as I have said earlier. History is written by the winner."

Seeing Riser not reacting other than clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, Julian lost his smile and tsk'ed.

Getting up, he shook his head. "Since I'm in a especially good mood. I'll give you a piece of advice. Take it or leave it, I don't care."

Turning his back on the harem and the bitter noble, he made way for the door. "No matter how high and wide a tower is, it's common sense that it will still fall at the slightest impact if it wasn't built with strong, sturdy materials. Let's say the tower's your pride, and your loss was the impact that shattered it. In your case, the material you used to build your 'tower' was your powerful blood and family. That's fine. But in the end, these achievements aren't yours. You got them at your birth. And borrowed deeds make for poor material when it come to personal pride. Your current state is enough proof as it is."

"Earlier today you lost both our match and your borrowed pride. Right now you cower in your room and refuse to go outside because of it. Will it stay the same tomorrow? To be frank, this situation was a long time coming, with how fragile the foundations of your so called pride was."

"Despite my only pair of wings, I'm considered a High-Class devil. You are Ultimate-Class, yet you still lost. Does that make you weak? Or does that make me strong? In your place, how would anyone else have fared?" Julian mused to himself, a cool expression on his face as he opened the door.

"Next time you see me, I'll probably be much stronger. And with yourself as you are right now, there's no way you'll ever be anywhere else but far behind me in the future. Or far behind everyone else in the young generation for that matter. Just looks at how much Rias and her peerage progressed in only ten days of hard work."

Rapping his knuckles on the door's frame as if in thoughts, Julian paused. "Is that really something you want to see? If yes, then ignore everything I've just said, you're a lost cause. But if not, I think there's a lesson to be had in all of this. Up to you if you even want to grasp it."

Gazing back one last time, Julian couldn't help but grins again as he passed his eyes over Riser and Ravel. "Besides, isn't a Pheonix whole shtick rising from their ashes?"

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Julian took a deep breath in, his face cramped in pain.

He was currently in his room, having isolated it from the outside world with a barrier.

Since his battle with Riser, the itch that was initially constrained to his back had gradually spread to his entire being and had progressively turned into pain.

He couldn't turn it off with PoD since it wasn't a physical pain, but something deeper. He would even dare say that it could go as deep as to reach his very essence.

Right now the pain was unbearable, he felt like a too full baloon that was on the point of bursting.

His body, as well as his magic reserves had reach a sort of threshold.

What did it meant, he didn't know for sure. But he had an idea.

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Essence of: Julian Håberjorgen-Marquis.

Race: Newborn (0 pair of wings) First-Order Nephalem.

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He had always wondered why he was born so weak, when even noble devils were born with High-Class power.

Why he had so little grasp of his innate powers as a Nephalem.

But as he grew up and he came naturally into his power as well as use EV for the first time. He thinks he found an answer.

To be perfectly clear, he never really 'trained' to achieve his current level of power. At least, not in any way an angel or a devil may train to become more powerful.

He still practiced daily in mastering his magical powers and mastering and honing his body through martial arts.

But like a dragon, as he grew up. Without using his wings to gather magical energy like he did these day, his power grew.

From barely stronger than a normal human to the weak Ultimate-class strength he had today.

As he aged, he became stronger.

It was a natural process, and from the information he could see from EV, he was still a newborn yet, as well as a first order Nephalemm whatever that meant.

(A/N: EV = Essence Vizualisation aka his status page he got from Kass who is not his mom.)

Only after he received the method High-Class devils and higher used to become strongee that the 'itch' appeared.

He could only guess the signification of it, since he was in unknown territory.

A bout of exquisite pain making him lose his train of thoughts, Julian decided to deal with the present situation and think later.

Gritting his teeth, his face paled.

To be frank, his pain tolerence wasn't that high. Because be it this life or the previous, the times he was exposed to a huge amount of it was very few. In this life, because of his use of PoD in his fights and in his previous, because he was a shut in researcher and was protected by his devices.

Fortunately, the same couldn't be said of his willpower. Even if his true mental state would make it seem the opposite. In truth, he only gave up one time in both his lives.

Unleashing his mixed devil-angel wings pair, Julian decided that whatever was happening. If he couldn't make it stop, then he had to force it forward.

It was a struggle to enter a meditative state, but he achieved it in the end after some time.

Forcing himself to grow his magical reserve in this state almost immediatly knocked him out cold, the pain he was in exponantially growing in an instant.

Opening his eyes widely and pausing to take a couple of gulping breaths who got cut out short by bout of infernal fire shuddering in his throat. Julian's face twisted as he roared out in outrage and pain.

After venting, a steely glint appeared in his eyes as he forced them closed and took in more magical energy by his wings.

Unknown to his solely focused self, veins popped up everywhere on his body and his muscles bulged by themselves. And the magical energy inside him, be it holy or demonic, rioted.

Pulses of orange energy slowly began to spread out from his body and into the room and his wings seized up.

Then in a strange showing, his wings exploded into grey and golden ichor. Only to be replaced by what could only be called extraordinary.

Two angelic like wings, two time the size of his previous ones and made out of a metallic like material. One milky white, the individual feathers almost indiscernable. An eye like pattern was present in the middle of it, alight with a dark red energy, gazing at whoever Julian would gaze at. Occasionally, red streaks of energy would rapidly flick between random feathers. The other wing was of the darkest void, an almagalm of darkness only shed by the symbol of universal Justice — a scale — glowing softly in the orange pink color of EC in its center. Same with its counterpart, flash of colorful streak would sometime appear briefly to lit up some normally invisible feathers.

(A/N: EC = Everlasting Cycle aka Julian's Nephalem magic that can manipulate time.)

After the appearance of these wings, came the changes to his body. Without delays, his entire exterior except his new appendages rippled and then condensed into a sort of golden crust that promptly broke and eveporated into golden gases. Letting Julian reappear, a bit taller, his features even more refined than before. More divine.

And naked.

As Julian opened his eyes in his — in a sense — new form the blue and the red of his irises never seemed so vibrant.

(A/N: The iris is the thing arround the pupil that contain the color of our eyes.)