Kill Six Billion Demons III: “Seeker of Thrones” (part one)
Well, it's been long enough since I finished FMA:B. It's time to go ahead and start my next longrunning project in Kill Six Billion Demons. Well, the rest of Kill Six Billion Demons, the first two books were already commissioned projects, but you know what I mean. The saga of Allison "Kill Six Billion Demons" Wanda Ruth, known locally as Killy, as she attempts to rescue her sort-of-boyfriend from the seven sorcerer-kings of the cosmos and maybe accidentally become God or something while she's at it continues now!
Where we left off at the end of book 2, Killy had her first face-to-face confrontation with one of said tyrant-sorcerers, Mottom, in her flying palace ship. In said confrontation, Killy learned that maybe-boyfriend Zaid is currently being held by another of the seven, Mammon, in his fortified vault of Yre, and also kinda humiliated Mottom and destroyed the source of immortality, so she's definitely going to be back for revenge at some point. Unfortunately, Killy also sustained some really nasty injuries from Mottom's parting shot, and while her companions - the angel White Chain, the devil Cio, and some other randos who we haven't really gotten to know yet - have magic I'm not sure that they have healing magic. But, on the bright side, Killy now has enough control over the Masterkey to use it voluntarily, and to bring objects as large as an airship through the portal with her, so that's a pretty major asset that I'm not sure even the Black Seven can quite match.
So. Killy and Co on an airship she just teleported out of Mottom's domain, the former wounded but empowered and on a mission. Here starts book three: Seeker of Thrones.
Going by the cover art, Killy isn't losing any time in raiding Mammon's treasure vault in search of Zaid. Speaking of Mammon, that bearded lizard thing in the background is poised in a position of mastery over the treasure hoard and has a demiurgic halo, so that's probably him. He looks much less humanlike than the others we've seen, but there's already been substantial evidence that "human" is a broad category in this universe. And hey. It's a treasure hoard. He's known as a demon of greed in our Earth's pop culture. He kind of has to look like a dragon.
Begin!
As the spelljammer flies lazily through the astral skies of Throne, Killy asks the others where the hell they even got this ship from and how they were able to find her in it. The answers seem self-evident enough, but perhaps not with the amount of blood Killy has lost. They just stole one of smaller haulers that had been making extraction runs between Mottom's ship and Mykos' surface, and they found Killy by following the sounds of explosions and enraged witch-queen screams.
Nyave, the random Mykosian girl who didn't get fed to Mottom's husband tree, is remorseful at the measures the crew's diabolical members took to secure the vessel. Apparently the previous captain was thrown overboard. They were just above ground at the time, but still, potentially injurious. Heh, I think Nyave doesn't quite realize what they were fighting against back there. Poor, brainwashed little peasant.
Killy tells the others that she's still looking for Zaid, and that she plans to go get him from Mammon as soon as she's able to do so. Upon hearing mention of Mammon and his lair of Yre, Cio over at the kitchenette has a shocked reaction, prompting White Chain to ask her if she told Killy about "it" yet. Um...I don't believe so? Don't think we've seen Cio talk about anything Mammon related. Killy concurs with me, and also has had it up to here with people being all vague and secretive around her.
Although...her way of expressing that strikes me as not all that fair or productive.
I guess its "her" ship in the sense that she has the ability to teleport it out from under them (or...does she, even? Does she have that kind of fine control? It hasn't yet been demonstrated that she does), but I mean...they're the ones who seized it. And who risked their lives to rescue her from Mottom when they really didn't have to (at least as far as Killy knows).
This feels out of character for Killy in multiple ways. Is Mottom's turbobitch virus contagious via attack vines or something?
Well, anyway. The new blue devil is Princess Mamoru Moonshine Jagermeister Jack Jack Daniels Timothy Tim Bill Freddy Mercury Blueberry Luna, Esquire, and he's here because he wants Killy to take those extra names away and turn him back into an ebon devil. Yeah, how about no. Princess is going to have to make some considerable shows of good faith before he can be trusted again, after that shit he pulled at the drinking contest. Still, he's willing to start earning that trust back by serving aboardship. Even in his vastly weakened state he's still an experienced fighter, and he can also share whatever general knowledge he remembers from his previous life. Fair enough.
Next in line is White Chain, who certainly has some explaining to do after the way she and Killy parted ways at the end of book one. I almost forgot that they barely had a chance to interact at all in book two, heh. Killy has to angrily remind her that being cryptic isn't allowed right now, but once she manages to pound that through that thick robotic skull of hers White Chain is forthcoming enough. She tells part of what happened in her meeting with the Thorn Knights, explains more about the difference between the Masterkey and the lesser Keys, and says that she's been ordered to assist Killy in the retrieval of Zaid, who her superiors believe must be given the Masterkey.
Killy isn't sure she understands - much less believes - any of that, but if it means that White Chain is going to help her rescue Zaid for now then she's not complaining. White Chain is definitely an asset to the team, between her angelic official status, her combat ability, and her policeman's understanding of Throne and its criminal factions.
...
As I mused previously, Metatron and his lieutenants may actually be wise to Killy being the true successor, and in fact might have conspired with Jagganoth to turn Zaid into a decoy for the other Black Kings in the first place. But, if that's the case, White Chain doesn't yet suspect it.
...
Next up is Nyave. She's come to understand that Killy saved her life by taking her place among the Mykosian tribute girls, and considers herself to owe a life debt. Additionally, she left home with the intent of serving a demiurgic mistress aboard a dimension-hopping airship, so...well, no reason to go back on that, right?
Heh, well phrased Nyave. She might not know much about Throne or the Black Kings, but she was considered a gifted student on her homeworld, with one of her areas of specialty being medicine. She's been tending Killy's wounds, it seems. Also, and perhaps even more importantly, she'd just gotten her pilot's license, and is the one who knows how to drive this damned ship.
Cio and Princess don't look so thrilled about the whole "uses devil fetuses for fuel" thing, but I guess they're used to it.
Speaking of Cio, she's the last of those present. She's already helped Killy a ton, seemingly altruistically as far as Killy can tell (though I suspect there's much more to it than that). Also, she's chronicling her adventures in her unique style, and wants to continue doing so. Also also, she wants to smash.
Accompanying this page, we have an excerpt from the writings of Pangoxes, meta-historian of the Retroactive Record Monks, Circa 35 Third Conquest.
““It is unfortunate that the only near-complete and exquisitely detailed chronicle of the Rising King was so elaborately embellished [21].
[21] I use the word embellished here with both a great deal of care and an extreme and calculated distaste.””
Well, if it's only 35 TC you can probably still interview God Empress Killy yourself, Pangoxes.
Killy doesn't let Cio slip away from the fact that her own secret was what started this whole interview series. So, at her and White Chain's continual and escalating prodding, Cio finally tells her story. Starting with the fact that Jabba the Sphinx wasn't just some stronger devil who shanghaied her into his crew: he was her husband.
That...is not what I had been expecting her to say.
Well, it does fit with my suspicion that she's not actually a mere blue devil. Though...she didn't exactly seem to be working with him willingly, at least by the time we met her, so...hmm. Could have been a less than voluntary marriage, I guess? I'm kind of surprised devils even have marriage as a concept, but I guess it fits the pact/contract part of their shtick.
That was the first chapter of book three. Very short one, really more of a prologue. Let's move on to the next, which opens with Cio's backstory.
Not so long ago, Ciocie Cioelle Estrella Von Maximus the Third had just one name instead of five. Yabalchoath (I tried to find the word "Pepsi" hidden in that name somehow, but no dice) was a mighty ebon devil, who ran the Gilded Cage crime syndicate as an equal partner with her husband Jabba.
Damn, so Cio and Princess really are in exactly the same boat. Ebon devils who got busted down to blue in the recent past. Or...actually, no. Princess' reaction when Cio tells this part makes it clear that Yabalchoath was a significantly bigger deal than Vladok. White Chain seconds this, explaining that she was one of the most notorious criminals in the multiverse in her heyday. Heh, damn. Her most infamous act, and the one that first brought her into the story when White Chain took Killy to meet her in book one, was her successful theft of a Key of Kings from Mammon in the heart of his fortress of Yre.
So that's why she reacted like that when she heard Killy wants to tangle with Mammon. Just like with Key removal, this is something she's done once before, but might not be remotely capable of doing again in her weakened blue state.
Anyway, Yabalchoath was very ambitious even for a devil queen, which meant that the Heretics' Court (a governing body that I didn't realize devils had until now. Seemingly a council of the most influential ebons) was quick to give her their blessings for the planned Key heist, as they hoped she'd get herself killed by Mammon. Stealing a Key, it turns out, isn't as simple as just sneaking into a Black King's vault and snatching it. The demiurgi have a way of combining multiple keys into a single object and then separating them again as needed. All of the Keys were originally pulled or copied from the substance of Zoss' original Masterkey, and that process is reversible enough to let you combine them again. So, each of the Seven keeps most of their keys fused into their own foreheads, unfusing a few to give to their vapra generals when they see fit.
We see an illustration of this with...I think that's Solomon David, another of the Seven who we haven't seen much of yet. Absorbing the Keys of slain enemies into his own during the war, and then parceling a few of his Keys out again to his vapras in the modern era.
So, to steal one, you need to pull it out of someone's head. And I guess the vapras are paranoid enough that ambushing one wasn't feasible, so Yabalchoath had to sneak up on one of the Seven.
Looks like she crept up on Mammon while he was sleeping in his treasure ocean. And managed to get away from him and exfiltrate Yre before he realized what had happened.
As she tells this part, Cio also informs us of a few more details about Mammon. Whatever species he is, he apparently had his entire family killed to prevent them from taking his wealth. Wealth which he then used to buy his first Key and begin his conquests.
Interesting. I wonder if Mammon's start came before the Demiurgic War broke out, or sometime during it? If the latter, I suspect he was a war profiteer of some kind, with one of the other demiurgi eventually paying him a Key for his continual military bankrolling. Something like that, anyway.
...speaking of Mammon's species, another panel on the same page depicting a few of Mammon's servants might shed some light on that:
Seeing those last two images side by side on the same comic page, yeah, they're definitely from the same order if not the same genus. We've seen those four-legged, four-jawed creatures wandering around Throne and walking the Kingsroad before, and Mammon is definitely a larger version of them. Perhaps the same way that Jagganath is a larger version of the default bipedal-human. It could also be that these are artificial life forms that Mammon created in his own image, but the mention of him having once had a family does imply that there are many other families of his race as well, and in light of that revelation this panel placement seems like intentional visual storytelling. So yeah, Mammon is probably a souped-up one of those lizard camel things.
Maybe this arc will answer some of my questions about "human" morphodiversity, if we're going to be learning more about Mammon's history. Cool.
Regardless, Yabalchoath started practically taking over Throne using her newfound telefragging powers and the resources of her private reality. She was now clearly the one in charge of the Gilded Cage, which began crushing its rival gangs and taking all their assets. But, not for too long.
Yabalchoath was...well, we've met Jabba, and she and him did things pretty much the same way, which means she wasn't exactly the best boss to work for. Once she was riding high on her stolen Key, she got even worse. A true monster, a voracious, sadistic consumer of lives and souls. Which meant that her underlings were quick to betray her when Mammon's lackeys and the Concordant Knights both started putting out feelers in force. The Gilded Cage's main base was destroyed by their combined forces, and Yabalchoath slain and her Key recovered while Jabba was allowed to quietly slip away.
No wonder Jabba likes angels even less than most of his kind.
Despite generally lacking in positive qualities, it seems that Jabba did earnestly love his wife. As soon as he deemed it safe to do so, he sent agents out to recover the fragments of Yabalchoath's mask from wherever the raiders had scattered them, lovingly reassembled it, and recreated her from the depths of the black flame. However, Cio wasn't as close a recreation as he'd hoped. She got at least some of Yabalchoath's memories, but her personality had some key differences.
She could be lying about her motivations for not wanting to be like Yabalchoath, but I don't think so. If the kindness is just an act, it's one she's been putting on nonstop for the entire time she's been onscreen and regardless of who she's interacting with. I continue to wonder what, if any, actual innate psychological differences angels and devils have from humans.
Anyway, Jabba's been keeping her locked up in the hopes of her old self coming back ever since (though that desire seemingly hasn't stopped him from exploiting her accounting skills in the meantime). Bringing her to the situation we first met her in, and leaving her with a strong aversion to repeating any of Yabalchoath's greatest hits for fear of that causing her personality to revert. Hence, a very strong reluctance to go anywhere near Yre.
Killy asks why she's even accompanied her so far, then. And yeah, that is a very good question. Their initial meeting involved Cio being asked to remove her Key, repeating one of Yabalchoath's most legendary deeds. Since then, Killy's path has involved intracriminal warfare, gambits against demiurgi, and other stuff that seems to tread at least somewhat close to devil crime lord business. She unconvincingly replies that she'd hoped she could turn Killy into a companion powerful enough to protect her, which...yeah, no, not buying it. While I suspect there is more to it than "wants to smash," it's probably not that. In any case, Killy says that she's going to Yre as soon as she's healthy enough to do so, so if Cio wants to remain in her company she's going to have to come too.
...maybe it really is just the anemia that was making Killy act like this, heh.
When Killy wakes up again, having been put back into bed by someone probably named White Chain, she takes note of a box of makeup she accidentally brought with her from Earth. Recalling her conversation with Mottom and the latter's difficult-to-parse equivocation between makeup usage and genocidal dictatorship, she seems to be considering throwing it in the trash. Presumably, that's also why she just cut her hair short and is being performatively determined and decisive; Mottom was successful at getting her to link feminine presentation with cowardice and inaction, regardless of how cowardly and inactive Mottom actually turned out to be. I don't judge Killy too hard for falling into this even after that reveal, though; like I said at the time, you don't last long as a tyrant without knowing how to demagogue.
Cio comes over to her and asks how she's holding together, getting a very expressive - if inarticulate - reply.
Understandable. She did just cap off several days of traumatic adventure by getting torn open by plants.
Sitting beside her, Cio comments on what Killy seems to be trying to do here. New look, new attitude, new identity give or take. But, take it from her, you can't ever really get away from who you actually are. So, it's better to acknowledge that you will make the same mistakes you already did over and over, and make peace with it.
Hmm. That seems very much at odds with what Cio just said about her backstory. Unless...was Yabalchoath the one who was running away from something, moreso than Cio is? Are neither personas the alleged "real self" that she doesn't think she can get away from? Curious.
Or...maybe not. A moment later, Cio clarifies.
I'm not sure I totally get what Cio is advising Killy to do, in that case. Just not to forget that that weakness and self-loathing is in her, even as she proceeds to not act on them? Okay I guess.
Honestly, while I believe Killy about the self-loathing part, I haven't gotten weakness or passivity from her at all. She was sort of passive throughout book one, but anyone would have been shell-shocked and overwhelmed in that situation. Since getting over that shock, she's been nothing if not decisive and proactive. I guess this is just the self loathing causing her to assign flaws to herself that she doesn't actually possess, and she's trying to overcorrect for them now after that exchange with Mottom.
Cio does offer to help trim up that impromptu haircut she gave herself, though, so that's nice. Albeit while giving her the most unapologetically thirsty expression ever put to panel.
We get it Cio, you want to smash, you don't have to keep shouting it like this.
She then tells Killy that if she wants to free a prisoner from Mammon's vault, she's going to have to do the same thing that Yabalchoath did the last time. Go to the Heretics' Court, and beseech the archdevils for their assistance in the heist. In particular, she will have to convince an entity Cio refers to as the "great king of the devils" to permit this operation. Huh, the devils are way more organized than I thought, if they have a complicated enough government for a king as well as a council to have roles in it. Regardless, Cio says she'll stand by Killy if she really wants to do it, even if it treads dangerously close to Yabalchoath's memories.
Yeah, there IS more to this than wanting to smash, but I really don't know what.
That's the first two chapters of book 3. Off to a solid start, aside from Killy's affected pirate queen moment being a little too over-the-top too quickly for me to quite believe. It seems like we're going to get some more interesting worldbuilding stuff about the devils and other non(?)human races of the setting too, which I'll always look forward to.
Also, the art continues to get more refined. Like, comparing this to early book one is absolutely night and day.
