Kill Six Billion Demons II: “Wielder of Names” (part one)
This was going to wait until I finished with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. However, @HeirApparent was kind enough to commission the second volume, so I bumped it up considerably in the queue. Depending on how many posts it takes me to get through this volume, there may end up being only a short gap between my finishing it and starting volume 3 as my next main project. Anyway, thank you very much HeirApparent!
As an added note, my Amazon account is being screwy, so I'll be reading the webcomic version of volume 2. From what I've been told, the discrepancies between the webcomic and commercial versions end after the first volume, so it shouldn't cause any issues. I'll probably buy the book later, since this is a creator I'd like to support.
Where last we left off, the young woman whose family and friends foolishly think of as Allison Wanda Ruth rather than her true name of Kill Six Billion Demons (Wanda Ruth) had just returned to Throne to rescue her sort-of-boyfriend Zaid from the dark masters of the multiverse. Which is actually less reckless than it sounds, since she a) doesn't actually know that that's who has him, and b) seems able to use the Key of Kings in her skull to escape at will if the going gets rough. That's a really powerful ability, honestly, assuming she doesn't run into something that can prevent plane shifting. She appeared in a moon-like wasteland on the outskirts of Throne, surrounded by some wacky looking characters, and there the first volume ended.
Going by the cover art, we're going to be spending a lot of time in that lunar-looking desert area, and dealing with the machinations of Queen Mottom, the Demiurge, She Whose Hat Darkens Worlds. The other three figures in between look like a redesigned version of Ciocie whose leveled up her own hat powers a little, some bigger devil we haven't met yet, and an angel whose blue eyeball motif suggests that it might be 82 without his avatar. He's more humanoid than I expected, if so.
Anyway, book two of five! We've got 1.2 billion more demons to kill! Begin!
A black void, with a single bright light and a ghostly voice.
And here I was thinking it was equivalent exchange. Get your story straight, pop culture.
This ends up being yet another piece of backstory. A part I actually wondered about repeatedly during my readthrough of volume 1. The "four races of inheritors," the sentient life forms created by the 777,777 gods before they made their own worlds. There are angels and devils, who we already know about. There are humans, the "only true mortals" among the lot. And then there's a motley assortment of weird monster things called "servants," who are said to be many races each created for a specific purpose. More specific than what the angels were made for, I guess. Some of the "servants" we're shown bear a resemblance to the nonhumans we've seen around Throne, and the "human" looks like an earth human, so I'm guessing that I was wrong about "human" being a catch-all for natives of the material side-universes.
No aliens in the conventional sense, then. That's a bit weird, considering that only half of the created universes have a version of Earth in them. Were humans created on multiple planets in each universe?
Two particular gods named Koss and Aesma, who I believe were both mentioned in Bizarro-Psalms in the past, are credited with making all of these critters. The other 777,775 just made plants and animals and shit, I dunno. Also, humans were apparently an accident of Aesma's who everyone decided to just keep around because why not. Ironic, given who's been ruling Throne and most of its satellites for the last however many bazillion years.
Zoom out, and we see that the storyteller going over all this is an angel, and he's retelling it for the benefit of some lesser angels who he's lecturing. One of whom is quickly revealed to be our old not-quite-pal, 82 White Chain Born In Emptiness Returns To Vanquish Evil. When 82 corrects the storyteller on a detail of the human creation segment (the first human specimen being female rather than male), the storyteller tells him to please remember who he's talking to. Prompting 82 to shamefacedly answer that the storyteller is his superior and commander, 2 Michael.
I wonder if there's a trend of more important angels having shorter names. And also lower numbers prefixing them. Either way, this guy may or may not be the inspiration behind the biblical archangel Michael. If not, then the inspiration must have come from 1 Michael, 3 Michael, 4 Michael, or...however many of them there are. Is that what the numbers indicate? Which of their "batch" of similarly-named angels they are? No clue.
Anyway, 82 has a real sore spot when it comes to misgendering people. Probably because it happens to him so much, for whatever reason. Are angels even supposed to have gender? A lot of people told 82 he looked feminine to them in the last book, and he never failed to get pissed off, so...maybe?
2 Michael goes on to express his belief that the gods made a fatal error in using the "pure" fire of Yisun to create life. The power of will without the understanding of cosmic oneness led humans to want, to greed, to consorting with devils, to bringing the multiverse to ruin. It was into angels, alone, that the god Koss beat the law with his magic hammer of lawfulness. And, thanks to entities that lack that trait coming to power, reality itself is dying, everything that was once holy profaned and corrupted and rotting.
I like how 2 Michael is throwing the devils under the bus here along with the humans. And also seemingly not giving those "servant" races the consideration of autonomy. On one hand, I can see where he might be coming from. From an angelic perspective, everything's just gotten worse and worse since they lost control of Throne. On the other, he's still saying that his own people are the only good ones and everyone else is vermin unfit for autonomy or possibly even corporeal existence. A sympathetic bigot, perhaps, but still very much a bigot.
Really, it's his antipathy for devils that's giving me bad vibes more than his hatred of humans. Both his and 82's history lessons kinda sorta imply that befriending the devils was a start of darkness for the demiurgi, but there's no a pattern of them being very nonspecific about how the devils were to blame. Meanwhile, the devils we've met in the present run the moral gamut from sadistic slavers like Jabba the Sphinx to kind, selfless individuals like Ciocie. There's been nothing to demonstrate that they're worse than anyone else, aside from the name.
...and we've run into at least one angel who was a criminal mercenary working for pimpdemon. So much for innate lawfulness.
Yeah, that cinches it. 2 Michael's a delusional racist.
On the next page, we get a bit more of an indication of why he is the way he is, though. Apparently, he was one of the guardians of Throne whose original, god-forged avatar was destroyed by Zoss during his initial visit. Upper-tier angels need more downtime between avatars than the common ones, apparently, so 2 Michael is the only one of the old angelic leadership whose become corporeal again. The others are still in spirit form, taking however many thousands of years it takes to integrate themselves into new synths. So, he resisted the original human invader, and was subsequently forced to watch as his hostility toward Zoss turned out (from his own perspective, at least) to be justified.
Also, I won't lie; angel Steve Bannon over here stomping around in one of those "bus" colossi back in the day must have been pretty fucking scary.
This whole backstory is a sort of disappointingly clumsy "as you know" speech leading up to 2 Michael berating 82 for being foolishly soft on humans. Not bringing that Key of Kings back to 2 Michael immediately was the action of one who has let their emotions overcome their commitment to the old law. 2 Michael reminds 82 that if he really cares about mortals so much, then he REALLY shouldn't have denied the Concordant Knights a valuable game piece like that key, because lately more and more angels have been leaving them and joining the Thorn Knights, and strengthening 2 Michael's reputation is important to prevent that trend from continuing.
From context, I assume that the Thorn Knights are a faction of angels who want to genocide the humans rather than just disempower them. Although at least a few of them were supposedly working for Mottom when she had them abduct Zaid. Maybe they sometimes do mercenary work to fund themselves or something, even stooping to taking jobs from the hated demiurgi on occasion? They wouldn't be the first hate group to choose money over integrity. Or, well...in the world of the comic maybe they actually were the first, due to being ancient beings, but...look, you know what I meant.
Anyway, 2 Michael is presenting himself as the moderate alternative to the growing Thorn Knight movement, and using that to coerce the others into supporting him or else risk letting the Thorns have their way. It's like I really am on left wing twitter.
2 Michael commands 82 to remove his helm. He does so, and to 2 Michael's unsurprised disgust his spirit form has taken on a disturbingly humanlike shape even separated from his synth.
Well..."his" synth.
2 Michael also just listed "gender" as one of the things that 82 has become too concerned with in their corruption by overexposure to mortals.
There's something really weird going on with angels and gender presentation. They're not supposed to be gendered at all, according to 2 Michael. But they get salty when referred to as female and notably NOT when referred to as male, and there's apparently a bias toward masculinity that 82 has started to point out.
2 Michael announces that creation will be ending soon. A "final usurper" has appeared, and she will finish destroying this corpse of a multiverse. Hopefully, a new creation will emerge from the destruction one way or another (is he hoping the gods end up re-congealing?), and then the angels will decide if they think this one will be more worth caring about. He sees this as the best possible future from here, and preferable to the Thorn Knights' chemo approach. Also, he correctly identified Kill Six Billion Demons as a "she," so patriarchal biases or no he's at least a little sharper than the demiurgi.
Also also, he decrees that 82 needs a time out from corporeality so they can recover from their humanity corruption. That means destroying their avatar in a way that can't be easily reversed. I'm not sure if 2 Michael sees this as a punishment, a preventative measure to ensure 82 doesn't cause any more trouble, or a needed medical procedure. Probably some combination of the above. Anyway, he orders some other angels to smash 82's avatar to bits. He does this by commanding them to discorporate "her," with quotation marks. And when the henchmen make to obey, they tell 82 "sorry, brother," and they respond "I'm not your brother.
The subtext is text now. 82 is transgender. Despite being from an asexual, nonhumanoid species. Somehow.
They break the synth, and 82 emerges in her embarrassingly humanoid and extremely hot spirit form.
The creator has gotten much better at drawing human-like characters since volume one, it seems. There's a bit of Eschergirl stuff going on with 82's torso in this panel, but given the intangibility of her present state that could actually be intentional. More importantly, the face! The face isn't hideous! We've come a long way since the days of Zaid's face falling off of his head Mr. Potato Man style.
As she looks at herself realizes just how much she's mutated from her original form, 82 starts breaking down crying. From her perspective, it might seem like 2 Michael was just proven right; this humanoid shape shouldn't be hers. After a moment, a friendly lamassu-like angel who'd been perched nearby this whole time bids her hello.
He still recognizes her, so that's good. By "so soon" does he mean since her brief discorporation when that renegade disabled her avatar in volume 1? Or was she disembodied another time recently before that? 82 does seem to live dangerously in general, so she might well have gone through a few synths. He also refers to her as "young," which suggests that angels have some method of reproduction. I wonder how that works?
Seeing how distraught she is over her spirit's manifestation, 420 Lamassu Whose Head Is An Ophan reassures 82 that a few thousand years out in the void away from material influences should have her as good as new. To make her feel better, he indicates some towering columns of dark, winged tentacles off in the distance, who have been working on readying themselves for new avatars since before either of them have existed. Those are 2 Michael's old coworkers who got their synths destroyed by Zoss, then. 420 asks 82 how many times its been now, and she answers...82.
Oh, okay, that's how it works then. The actual entity is White Chain Born In Emptiness Returns To Vanquish Evil. They only use the prefix numbers when they're piloting a synth, and it refers to how many of those they've gone through. That fits with 2 Michael, since he only recently regained physical form after Zoss wrecked his bus.
When Lamassu addresses White Chain as brother, she corrects him.
Hmm. I feel like this is a little too fast, after how White Chain reacted to people referring to her as feminine in the last volume, and the way she just now broke down and panicked at the sight of her current spirit-self. She needed more time, and more onscreen character development, before accepting it. Even if she'd been on the brink of doing this for a long time and was just painfully holding it in during the first volume, it's unsatisfying for the reader who never got to see that.
Combined with this sequence's abundance of "as you know," I'm forced to call it one of the weaker parts of the comic so far.
On a more thought provoking note, I wonder if the angelic bias toward masculinity is related to their association with the male half of their creator-duo, since they (or at least, Michael and his concordant knights) believe the law he beat into them to be what makes them better than everyone else. So they try to style themselves after Koss and try to be unlike Aesma, since she's the one credited with (accidentally?) creating humans as well. The angelic concept of "masculinity" is more liked to this settings version of the Taijitu than it is to any biological traits or social roles. Okay, that makes sense. And is pretty creative and interesting too!
As they speak, White Chain and Lamassu wander out across the wastes away from Concordant HQ and toward the other big angels in the background. Suddenly, they're approached by a new arrival. Meet Blade Darkhammer, god of everything that 13 year old boys think is cool.
Or, as he introduces himself, 6 Juggernaut Star Scours The Universe. Which, let's face it, is only half a step away from my own proposal. He doesn't introduce his bike friends there, but they're helpfully labeled, so Sinners 1-9 are readily identifiable. The wheels of his edgemobile appear to be other angels, but I guess they could also be extensions of Juggernaut Star himself. In the event that they aren't, I shall refer to them as 69 Rolley and 404 Polley.
Juggernaut Star is a leader of the Thorn Knight faction. His synth looks stylistically similar to the things that grabbed Zaid, so that checks out. He apparently has a deal to offer White Chain, and wishes to discuss it over tea that I'm not sure she can even drink in her current state but what do I know. Most likely, the deal will be something to the effect of "tell us everything you know about that missing Key of Kings, and we'll build you a new avatar." Or maybe this is just a recruitment pitch that they offer to any angel who gets disembodied by Michael and might be disgruntled with his faction. Either or. We'll only find out later, because from here we switch back to Kill Six Billion Demons the character.
She's found herself in a diabolical shantytown somewhere out in the same rocky wasteland that the angels dwell in another corner of. In front of her is a megastructure that looks like one of those Gates that connect Throne to the satellite universes.
I guess some of them are way out here in the boonies rather than the built up part of Throne. Can't tell at this distance if this Gate is active or not, but I assume there's a reason that this devil village is here rather than someplace else.
Not sure what to do from here, Kill Six Billion Demons just walks up to the nearest bar and orders a drink. Not sure how she plans to pay for it, but hopefully this variety of devil booze at least isn't the kind that gets you pregnant. Or, if it is, at least it won't be the kind that gets you pregnant without first getting you laid. She still has that uncompleted sidequest from the first page of the comic, you know. While waiting to be served, she's approached by a familiar devil.
I'm guessing Killy's reason for ending up here rather than anywhere else in Throne is related to that business card that Ciocie put in her pocket. It was probably enchanted to bring her close to Ciocie when and if she plane shifted back Throneward.
Well, it's certainly for the best. Ciocie is probably the only entity who Killy has anything even approaching fond memories of from yesterday's visit.
A few panels later, Ciocie confirms my suspicion, and introduces herself more formally by her full name of Cio Cioelle Estrella Von Maximus the Third, because no one besides Michael is allowed to have a name with fewer than four words in it in this comic. She also informs Killy that now that she's free of her servitude to Jabba the Sphinx, she can devote her time to pursuing her true calling.
On a side note, White Chain isn't the only one to have benefited
immensely from the art upgrade.
Okay then.
When Killy begs Cio to please say something to make her situation less confusing rather than more, Cio helpfully explains where they are. This moonscape isn't part of Throne, apparently. It's a dimensional in-between that has what appears to be barren ground to stand on only because of Throne's existential "shadow." Basically, its the region of nothingness that's pulled taut between Throne and the 777,777 worlds, and that tension gives it something like terrain in a circular area slightly larger than Throne itself. The Gates don't lead directly from Throne to satellite worlds, apparently, but from Throne to various locations here, and then there are OTHER Gates clustered around those that lead to the other universes. A dimensional tributary structure, basically. Which is fitting, because a lot of tribute comes flowing downriver through it.
Cio also explains that this place is what the devils and angels call home. Unlike the angels, who come here to rest and regroup between avatars, the devils were essentially *banished* here by their creators until the demiurgi gave them masks and let them take form. Also unlike angels, devils can't take their sweet time being unmasked and unbound. If they remain without an avatar for too long, they lose their identities and revert to raw, semi-sentient black fire with no agenda save consumption. There's a reason they were so desperate to keep themselves useful to the demiurgi once they'd been given individuality.
Also, apparently Cio wants to write fan fiction about Killy's adventures in progress. Not sure how she decided Killy was the person to do this for, but maybe Cio just has a sense of these things.
Killy asks about the Gate near the shantytown, which doesn't appear to be active after all. She surmises that it might be her own homeworld's access point. and Cio says she's probably correct. Ah, I misunderstood before; the business card didn't bring Killy to Cio, it did the opposite. That makes more sense, honestly. Anyway, the reason the shantytown is here is because the devils know that when one of the seven Black Kings get around to opening a new Gate, there's always plenty of work for their kind. So, they hang out near unopened ones and wait for centuries or millennia, knowing that sooner or later there'll be something to do there. Sounds like fun. The world beyond this unopened Gate is the theoretical property of Queen Mottom. She points out that Mottom's flying palace is actually making a pass overhead right now as she cruises it out of one of her Gates and into another.
If you look very closely, you can see Mottom's torso and legs hanging down from the middle.
Killy declares that she wants to get to that palace, despite Cio's insistence that she find a mentor and grind a few dozen levels before she try anything of the sort, and possibly pick up a love interest or three for more fanfic material. Killy explains that she doesn't have any intention of fighting Mottom if she can help it. She just figures that if Mottom is supposedly in charge of her world, then she or one of her officials might know what happened to Zaid or at least have some idea of who to ask.
Right. She never found out that Mottom was the one who had those Thorn Knights capture him in the first place. Oops.
Drinks are served (on the house, surprisingly. I'm guessing there's a hidden fee of some kind), and Cio and Killy argue over what the latter should be doing. Also, Killy is pretty skeptical of Cio's motivations in latching on to her, which I can't blame her for in the slightest. As they argue, a trio of well dressed humans approach, apologize for interrupting what looks like a difficult devil-binding attempt, and ask Killy if her master is looking to hire some more enforcers.
Right. People with Keys of Kings in their heads are assumed to be "vapra," a class of sorcerers who act as important emissaries and lieutenants for the Seven. Seeing what appears to be a vapra alone and not doing anything too important looking would be a good opportunity for someone to make contact with the powers that be.
Her attempts to shrug off their questions are as unconvincing as they are hilarious.
She's just wearing a "normal forehead-thing," she insists. When that predictably doesn't work, she decides to just pretend to be one of Mottom's servants. Which is probably the closest answer to the truth that these people will accept, as well as the one that makes her current objection appear the least suspicious.
It works better than expected. The "magisters" as they call themselves get cold feet when she names Mottom as her boss, claiming that she's supposed to be one of the worsts of the Seven to work for. Well, that's reassuring.
As they back off, and Cio tells her for the umteenth time that she should NOT be going anywhere near Mottom until she's gotten more powerful, Killy finally gets frustrated. She turns around, and asks if any of the devils within ear shot would be interested in flying her to the brim of that giant hat up there. Cio facepalms. Killy gets several takers, though most of them are laughing at her and asking for ridiculous things like her children, all of her teeth, a kiss (this from a devil with a cavernous maw and giant teeth), etc. After a few minutes though, she gets what appears to be a serious taker.
I doubt those two things are of anywhere near equal value, even without the fact that removing the Key will most likely involve killing her, but Killy doesn't have much else to offer right now. So, she accepts this black devil's challenge.
The "black" detail might actually be very significant. Each page of this webcomic has a little blurb of text below it. Sometimes these are just a snarky one liner, sometimes they're lengthy excerpts from in-universe documents. Most of them haven't been immediately story relevant, so I haven't mentioned them, but this one sheds light on quite a few critical details.
““Fynally, I wyll speak on the Ebon Devyl, or True Devyl.
A Devyl when he is born as Pallyd has many hundreds of Names, none of whych are useful to hym, a method of his Bynding that gyves Shape to rawest Chaos whyle styll allowyng him to be controlled. As he grows older he makes secret Bargayns with Fools and finds clever ways to lop these Names off, and thus metamorphoses, changing Color and Shape most drastycally. Thus does the Pallyd become Blue, the Blue become Crymson, the Crymson become Verdant, the Verdant become Gylded.
An Ebon Devyl has but a syngle Name. There are but a few Dozen in all of Creation.
I wyll speak no further on the matter of Devyl Bynding for the Hour grows most late and a Chyll is settlyng up my old Spyne..””
The more names a devil has, the weaker it is. That also likely applies to angels, given that "White Chain Born In Emptiness Returns To Vanquish Evil" and "Michael" are on opposite ends of their own ladder, but for devils its more extreme. And you can tell how many it currently possesses based on its color, with black being the strongests. So, the guy Killy is gambling with is very powerful, which explains why he seems more serious in his offer than the others; he actually CAN fly or teleport her up there.
Also, I guess Cio will get stronger if she can somehow ditch a few of her middle names. I wonder if that's why she's actually following Killy? She thinks she can help her ditch names more efficiently than making "secret Bargayns with Fools" would.
Killy accepts, and the ebon devil places a mark on her hand that binds them both to obey the terms of the bet.
From that cliffhanger, we flash back to White Chain and Juggernaut Star having their tea party. I'll start the next post with that, and the start of the next chapter.
