Serena Snape: Love of Magic - chapter 78

Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.

I broke free from Bella's stakes and began to regenerate immediately. I glared at Bellatrix, which she returned with ease and far greater intensity. I grimaced before sighing.

Girlycard outfit, that is, Alucard's all-white outfit when he's in his female form in The Dawn, and it fit her perfectly. She was bewitching and not a curveless loli like that version of Alucard. As always, Bellatrix was full of curves and my gaze momentarily lingered on them. Bellatrix just crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow in my direction as she noticed my gaze wandering over her body. I smiled crookedly at her, to which she snorted and looked away with annoyance. I sighed tiredly again.

I looked at Ravel who had crouched down to try and protect her modesty, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. I sighed and waved my hand. Her dress on the floor suddenly shifted, Ravel looked surprised and squealed as the clothes covered her once again. I could see her sigh in relief.

"You!! Let's fight! " I'll kill you! " Riser exclaimed while pointing his finger at me, I sighed.

"Yeah, no, I'm too tired for that," I dismissed his challenge with a hand before taking one of the potions from the box. "Here, drink this. If you resist its effects, I'll surrender; if not, I win." I said simply. Riser wrinkled his nose while Ravel looked panicked.

"Don't listen to her bro! Those potions are dangerous! " Ravel shrieked, composing herself. I rolled my eyes.

"And why would I accept that? You can't defeat me, this is just one-sided." Riser said with his chin held high. I shrugged.

"You couldn't defeat my queen, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve," I said simply. Riser snorted.

"You're a succubus, I doubt you can do anything to defeat the Phenex's regeneration." Riser said arrogantly, I snorted in amusement.

"Does that mean you're afraid of my potion?" I asked, amusedly. Riser gritted his teeth.

"I'm not afraid of anything." Riser growled, I shrugged.

"I don't know, it doesn't seem like it. you're just looking for an excuse not to drink my potion, you're scared." I continued trying to provoke him, Riser made a face before snatching the potion from my hands. Honestly, I thought it would be harder. He opened the bottle and drank it all the way.

"Brother, no!" Ravel exclaimed in panic, quickly approaching Riser. Riser lowered the completely empty flask and frowned. After a few seconds, he smiled arrogantly at me.

"That didn't work, now... you must... give up..." Riser said completely sleepily, his eyes blinking rapidly before becoming slower and slower. "I... win..." With those last words, Riser went completely limp and fell to the ground, dead to the world.

I sighed in relief. This confirmed exactly what I wanted to know about the Phenex physiology that Ravel had already demonstrated. As long as they weren't harmful potions, the Phenex's regeneration would be useless. Or it was simply because regeneration depended on the user's mental strength.

Ravel was incapacitated, completely in love with me, so she didn't fight back against the love potion in any way. While Riser had just drank The Draught of Living Death, the most powerful sleeping potion I could create. And he drank an entire bottle. So now he should be in some sort of magical coma or stasis that closely simulated death. So his brain is completely shut down, temporarily disabling his regeneration.

That opened up more options. If it was all mental, I had more options to draw on.

"Brother!" Ravel exclaimed as she bent down to check on Riser. "He's not breathing!" she said in a panic, placing her ear against his chest. "H-he has no heartbeat! What did you do to him?! " Ravel shrieked with tears in her eyes. I opened my mouth to answer and give him the antidote, but Ravel interrupted me. "We surrender! Get us out immediately! " Ravel exclaimed in panic into the air.

" Riser's bishop surrenders. Riser Phenex cannot continue! With the opposing king defeated, the newly debuted Serena Prince wins the Rating Game! " the referee quickly announced as we were simultaneously teleported off the field.

We were in the middle of the stadium, and the devils pounced on Riser, whether from his Peerage or from the medical staff who were always present and attentive in every Rating Game.

"I should go and do some damage control before this gets any worse, shouldn't I? " I asked in a whisper in Bella's direction. She gave me a flat look.

"This is going to be a circus with what you did with the Phenex girl." Bella hissed. I blushed slightly and looked away. Even without looking at her, I could feel her rolling her eyes. "And yes, you should intervene before you are accused of murder against a pillar devil, I'm sure Malfoy would love the challenge of fighting legally in your defense, but right now it's not necessary. This is already going to give us too much publicity." Bella said seriously, I made a face.

"You knew what the plan was, you agreed," I said with a pout, Bellatrix snorted. "And I still think this is better than revealing Harpe. It's one thing to make really strong potions, it's another to reveal a divine sword from the Greek pantheon. Those gods, I really don't want to have their eyes on us yet." I grimaced at Bella's reply.

"You're lucky you're right. Hades isn't someone we can face head-on just yet if we draw too much of his attention." Bella said with a sigh. Really, we were being very careful even though it was unlikely anything would happen. Harpe, as strong as it is, is still just a weapon. There have been other weapons, whether in the form of Sacred Gear or not from Greek mythology that didn't draw the attention of the Greek pantheon.

Even the descendant of Heracles didn't get that much attention from those gods. So maybe we're just being a little paranoid. They might not do anything, but they would definitely start to notice me if I used Harpe, even if they didn't do anything, and that was something I wanted to avoid in the short term.

But even so, I had a feeling that it was something Hades might be looking for, while the gods weren't completely immortal, something like Harpe would make the whole process easier.

"How is my son?" a man who had just appeared quickly asked, his expression was stony and his voice was almost icy, but I could still hear a hint of concern in his voice. He looked just as young as Riser, but he was Riser and Ravel's father. 

Riser's father walked over to his son and quickly took out a small vial of phoenix tears. Ah… that might not be of any use at all. Unfortunately for me, I was right. Riser's father let the tears fall onto Riser's body, his body glowing for a few seconds before it disappeared. Riser's body had absolutely no change. He still looked completely dead.

"Father!" Ravel exclaimed with tears threatening her eyes. He sighed tiredly.

Okay, this was getting out of hand. With another sigh, I pulled a cigarette out of my inventory and quickly lit it before taking a long drag. Once I exhaled all the smoke, Bella stole it from my fingers. I pursed my lips in her direction before pulling out another one and walking over to the group of devils surrounding Riser. Riser's father immediately spotted me and stood in front of everyone, the amount of fury in his eyes almost making me roll my eyes.

"What do you want?" Lord Phenex asked. If his voice had been cold before, now it was practically arctic.

"To wake up your son." I said simply. Lord Phenex had somehow become even angrier. In fact, I could feel his demonic power exploding with force and trying to overpower me. I stood there, barely unfazed. The magic I heard from my Allomantic bronze was strong, stronger than any devil I had met so far.

But it wasn't enough to make me give in.

"Wake up my son? Wake up my son?! You damn -"

"Now, now, Lord Phenex, why won't you let Lady Prince speak? " All my alarms went off at the same time. I didn't even have to look over my shoulder to know that the one speaking was Sirzechs FUCKING Lucifer himself. He hadn't let go of his power like Lord Phenex, but his power was overwhelming everything. His noise was really strange, instead of sounding like a drum it was a damn distortion that somehow erased all other noises.

"Lord Lucifer, with all due respect, but this is none of your business or that of the Satans," Lord Phenex said coldly. Sirzechs simply smiled.

"It could be, just consider us as an… interested party, we are truly curious about what Lady Prince has to say. Of course, we are also interested in young Riser's health, if Lady Prince says she can fix what her potion did, why don't we just let her? It's not like phoenix tears do anything" Sirzechs said with a smile as he stared at Lord Phenex for a few seconds before looking back at me. I could almost hear Lord Phenex gritting his teeth.

I wanted to raise my eyebrows in surprise, Sirzechs seemed… antagonistic towards Lord Phenex, to say the least, I certainly didn't expect that, and Lord Phenex also seemed to be annoyed with Sirzechs' presence. Maybe the whole issue with Riser and Rias' engagement was making things sour between the two.

Not counting the canon meta-knowledge, it's not like it was a surprise that Rias didn't want to marry Riser. The entire underworld internet was speculating about it. Rias, despite her hatred for Riser, hadn't been stupid enough to make her problem with the engagement public. After all, she had her pride as a Gremory to uphold. But it was still a very high-level engagement between two people of public interest.

Therefore, the other devils were really interested in whatever the two of them did, or in this case, the lack of things they should do. People had come to the correct conclusion that Rias was the one who didn't want the commitment.

So it was only natural for Lord Phenex to feel frustrated and somewhat annoyed with Sirzechs, who was an enabler for Rias to try and prevent the engagement. He certainly couldn't get directly involved in such matters. But as long as he didn't just see eye to eye interfering directly, anything else was fair game. Sirzechs was more than capable of doing anything for Rias as a massive sis-con, and everyone knew it.

But leaving that aside, what bothered me the most was the way Sirzechs kept talking. Sirzechs kept saying 'we'. I quickly looked over my shoulder and stopped stiffly. Grayfia and Ajuka Beelzebub.

That the strongest queen was present was not important; it was expected to a certain extent. But that another Satan was present here? That was a huge problem. Even more so because he kept staring at me, as if he was trying to solve a very complicated problem. This was bad. Very bad. It would have been easier to just use Harpe and be done with it.

"Fine," Lord Phenex spat through gritted teeth, "I'll be keeping an eye on you. This better work." He hissed in my direction as he stepped aside. Sirzechs looked at me with an encouraging smile. I wanted to curse him, I didn't want or need this attention from any Satan! I could have easily handled Lord Phenex alone! 

I had no choice but to continue forward. I took a long drag on my cigarette before making it disappear. I approached Riser at the same time as the healer devils walked away worriedly.

"Heal him, please," Ravel pleaded from the side before biting her lip. "If you heal him, I'll… be yours-"

"No need!" I quickly shrieked, I could almost feel Bella's stakes poking me all over if Ravel finished that sentence. Ravel was surprised by my scream. I just cleared my throat. "Riser is fine, he's just sleeping." I said simply.

"Sleeping?" Ravel asked incredulously, I shrugged.

"What Riser drank, is something of… my own creation-" It wasn't the first time I stole credit from someone for creating a potion, and I didn't mind doing it again. "-It's called Draught of Living Death. It's a sleeping pill." I explained while looking at Riser.

"A sleeping pill!? My son isn't breathing and has no heartbeat! How the hell is that a sleeping pill? " Lord Phenex exclaimed from the side, I shrugged again.

"A really powerful sleeping pill." I simply conceded, Lord Phenex's completely incredulous look almost made me laugh, but I held back. I simply licked my lips lightly trying to create a believable story "I was looking for a way to replicate sleeping sickness to find a cure."

"But the result was a bit more potent than I expected. The potion is extremely powerful and sends the drinker into a death-like sleep. Its effects are very similar to suspended animation. There is no pulse because they are 'frozen', that also means that their body is 'frozen', so it won't weaken in any way. It will just… remain like this until I give it the antidote."

I lied through my teeth, shocking everyone. They all had varying levels of disbelief on their faces.

"Wait, until someone drinks the antidote, how long does the potion's effects last? " Ajuka asked curiously as he approached. I paused momentarily. How long does the Draught of Living Death last? I looked at Bellatrix in bewilderment, who also seemed confused. The antidote to the sleeping potion was relatively easy to create. So I don't recall any instances where the potion was just left to run its course. Except for the most famous use. Doing some quick math, it should indeed last that long.

"It should last at least 100 years," I said simply. That was how long Leticia Somnelens wanted to keep a certain princess asleep, according to the stories, and the calculations seemed to add up.

"Excuse me, did you say 100 years?" Sirzechs asked with a frozen smile.

"At least," I corrected him.

"At least 100 years." Sirzechs repeated robotically, I shrugged.

"According to my calculations, yes, for obvious reasons I haven't been able to test it yet, but I'm not wrong with my potions." I said with a cocky smile. I then lifted my skirt and reached under it with a hand before pulling out a Wiggenweld potion. The antidote to sleeping potions.

"What's that?" Lord Phenex asked quickly.

"Wiggenweld potion." I said simply and looked at Riser before considering it.

"May I ask what this potion contains, this Wiggenweld potion?" Ajuka moved closer to look at the potion more closely. I hummed softly.

"Salamander blood, lionfish spines, Flobberworm mucus, unicorn horn, cooked mandrake, moly, dictamus, honey water, and a few other things," I said absentmindedly. The Wiggenweld potion was easy to modify and had way too many variants. Adding or removing ingredients only changed the strength of its effects or added new ones to existing ones. The version of Wiggenweld I had pulled out was one of the strongest I had.

The weaker one would actually get the job done, but the last thing I want is for it to not work due to Riser's physiology and for Lord Phenex to try to kill me or declare some sort of blood feud against me because of this.

Lord Phenex snorted audibly.

"Do you expect us to believe that?" Lord Phenex asked almost mockingly, my attention focused on him once more and I tilted my head.

"What? Did I say something wrong? "

"Unicorn horn? Moly? Of all the things you could have said, you chose those two? As if a mere succubus would be able to get those ingredients. And what the hell is a Flobberworm?" Lord Phenex said mockingly. I frowned. Before my eyes could even open slightly, I could hear Bella facepalm against her palm.

I knew many ingredients wouldn't exist in this world. But I had forgotten, I guess none of those ingredients I mentioned were common in this world, or were extremely rare, I'll have to take inventory when I get back home to see how they compare locally. I just shrugged.

"Believe what you want," I said simply.

"Where did you get a unicorn horn?" Ravel asked cautiously. I looked at her as if the question she had asked was stupid.

"Off a… unicorn." I said slowly as if it was obvious. Ravel blushed deeply.

"No, that's not it! Stupid succubus!" Ravel exclaimed embarrassed. I blinked in confusion, opening my mouth before sighing and shaking my head.

"Never mind." I quickly dismissed it before seeing Riser's queen standing near us and pointing at her. "You, come here." Riser's queen looked surprised but I immediately took a step eagerly closer to her king. I tossed the potion at her and she caught it awkwardly. "Place some of the potion on your lips, then kiss your king." I told her simply, she looked at me stupidly.

"What?" she asked stupidly. I rolled my eyes before waving my hand. At this point, I was already doomed so what if I continue sinking further? I transfigured Riser's queen clothes into a prince's outfit. While Riser's clothes immediately changed into a dress, and I didn't stop there, Riser's hair grew out, and a bit of makeup appeared on his face. Riser was already handsome, so with makeup on he looked really good if it wasn't for the fact that his figure was still muscular enough that he couldn't be mistaken for a woman.

"How dare you!" Lord Phenex growled, I could feel his demonic power and heat rising, only to stop when Sirzechs raised his hand. Sirzechs had an amused smile on his face, he seemed to be enjoying every moment.

"Is this necessary Lady Prince?" Sirzechs asked. I could see him trembling while holding back a laugh. I looked at him seriously.

"Of course, Lord Lucifer, the devils' innate tantric arts increase the effectiveness and activate the effects of the Wiggenweld potion so that they can remove the Draught of Living Death. The more involved the Phenex Queen is, the stronger the effect will be. I thought she needed a visual aid." I said with all the seriousness I could muster, pure bullshit, there was no such thing as innate tantric arts, devils could heal with skin to skin contact just like Rias had done with Issei in the beginning, yes, but that's not going to be necessary.

And everyone knew it, Lord Phenex knew it, and especially Sirzechs knew it too. That's why he snorted heavily while covering his face with his hand and turning his head away. I could hear Lord Phenex grit his teeth, I just smiled widely and looked at Yubelluna.

"So? Are you going to do it? Don't you want to wake up your princess? I mean, your king? " I said amusedly to Yubelluna, Yubelluna seemed to wake up from her thoughts. She stared at Riser for a few seconds before she blushed deeply, but she opened the potion bottle, carefully rubbing some of the potion onto her lips before handing the bottle back to me, she then gathered all her courage and crouched down next to Riser.

Yubelluna slightly raised Riser's head before lowering her own and kissing him softly. The effect of the Wiggenweld potion was immediate. Riser's eyes widened, and he pulled away from Yubelluna, his gaze locking onto me without hesitation.

"Ha! I told you it wouldn't work against a Phenex! You can give up now! This Rating Game is mine! " Riser said arrogantly. I rolled my eyes.

" Riser!" "Brother!" "Son !" The amount of people approaching Riser left him completely confused.

"What's going on?" Riser asked, not understanding what was happening.

"You lost, the potion took effect, you fainted, and the victory was mine," I said to Riser with a mocking smile. Riser's eyes widened.

"You're lying!" Riser growled.

"She's not, brother, the potion worked. I thought- I thought- that-" Ravel tried to say while whimpering about to start crying.

"I-I don't understand." Riser said simply as he awkwardly comforted Ravel.

"Yes, allow me," Sirzechs said with a smile before a holographic screen appeared in front of Riser. Riser watched as he took the Draught of Living Death before falling unconscious. He then watched Ravel panic, and his defeat was announced before the video ended.

Riser's eyes were wide open. Before his gaze immediately fell on me.

"I don't accept it! I want a rematch! " Riser demanded forcefully as he stood up. I snorted. I thought he would just stay down and mope like what happened with Issei in canon. But I guess now he's more upset and angry about how he lost to a potion… or maybe he's still angry about Ravel… I'd never know.

"Whenever you want," I shrugged. "Although, we can't play multiple Rating Games against each other." I said simply, and it was true. There was a rule that in order for two devils to face each other again in an official Rating Game, they had to face different opponents in between. It was simply so that they couldn't buy victories from the same opponent and climb the rankings easily.

Riser remembered the rule and growled in my direction.

"Alright! Face your other opponent as quickly as you can! " I want to defeat you! " Riser demanded in my direction. I waved him away.

" Yes, yes, of course, now, if that was all, I have to go see my Peerage, celebrate my first victorious Rating Game and all that. So-" I quickly approached Bella and grabbed her arm. "-see you later, Lord Phenex, Lord Lucifer, Lord Beelzebub, Lady Lucifuge, nice to meet you all, but… we're in a hurry, goodbye! " I said quickly, the faster we left the better.

This had already gotten out of hand.

"Wait," Sirzechs said with a smile as he stepped forward. "Actually, I was hoping we could talk if you have time, I have some questions I'd like to ask you." I squeezed my eyes shut. Of course I couldn't refuse the damn Satan Lucifer.

"Of course," I smiled fakely. I felt like punching him in the face for his stupid smile.