Kill Six Billion Demons III: "Seeker of Thrones" (part seven)
Time for another proper K6BD update. Where we left off, Killy's been possessed by Incubus, the catgirl's been sacrificed to open the doorway, Cio's getting angrier and bitterer, and White Chain is punching a racketeer in the face. Nice combo breaker there, White Chain.
Let's see where these threads lead from here!
As Killy stares blankly as a prisoner in her own body, and Cio pointedly looks away and avoids making herself directly complicit, Felicia's luck runs out in the most viscerally metal set of panels in the comic thus far.
Is that door actually alive? I thought it was just a freaky looking automoton, but now I'm much less sure.
Well. That's a thing that happened.
The face pulls itself apart far enough to let a slightly-wider-than-human creature pass through the door underneath it. Beyond the threshold, the next region of Yre stretches out as far as the eye can see. Incubus!Killy is awed and pleased by the sight, having already forgotten all about the human sacrifice.
I guess they don't call Yre the fractal fortress for nothing.
That said...the stupid Labyrinth cosplay that the comic put Incubus in back at the start of this volume is making me wonder if this is supposed to be yet another shoehorned reference. Maybe not, but between that and the mimics I'm sort of wary about that kinda thing at this point.
Also, on a less scathing note, Mammon really does seem to like his own face. Or...actually, ARE those statues all of him? I noticed the different hats at first, and from there...well, it's hard to tell with such a nonhuman-looking species, but I THINK there are facial differences as well. Maybe these are different kindsies, then. Although...that would be weird, considering the mutual antipathy between Mammon and most of his people. But, then again, That *was* a very long time ago, so other kindsie tribes might have given in to the pressure and sworn fealty to him since then. In which case, I could see Mammon rewarding those chieftains with this kind of immortalization.
Or maybe those statues really are all Mammon, just wearing different makeup and hats. That's actually more likely, I think, even if it's less interesting.
Well, we leave the infiltration team for the moment, and zip back to the restaurant that White Chain has decided to very angrily defend from the Fallen One Mafia. The first thing we see happen is a teacup falling off a table and breaking, just to make sure we remember that White Chain is showing some unpleasant learned habits. But, the cutlery carnage quickly gives way to her and 46 Nice Place You Got Shame If Anything Happened To It having their angel animu punchout.
Seriously, even the dialogue is animu. Complete with calling attacks.
White Chain does the flaming finger fork, setting Nice Place on fire and knocking them to the ground in a heap of stone and smoke. Looks like Nice Place has na'd their last ni. They morosely look up at White Chain, and surrender. White Chain can go ahead and run them in, now; they'll allow the Concordant Knights to imprison/disembody/petrify/whatever them as the law dictates.
However, unlike in the previous examples we've seen of her crimefighting, White Chain does...well, not that. Instead, she knocks Nice Place's four arms aside and keeps beating them on the ground. While screaming semi-coherently about what a disgrace they are, what an abomination, what an insult to existence itself. Why can't they just NOT DO THIS? Why do they have to behave this way, when the angelic niche is so simple to understand and so obviously better than this petty criminal bullshit?
Then, the comic does the most ham-fisted, unsubtle, insulting-to-the-readers'-intelligence thing that it has so far:
-____-
...
For those of you who haven't read the comic, here's a refresher for a scene in the previous volume that it's been a long time since I covered:
So, either Juggernaut Star is teleporting angel drugs into White Chain and possessing her with them, or this is just...like...bad.
I'm picturing a sixth grader whose English teacher told them to write a story that has Themes And Symbolism in it. Or one of those really overwritten TV shows where a character will say something in one scene, and then we'll hear it repeated in voiceover two scenes later in case we forgot it, or failed to notice its relevance.
K6BD isn't normally like this. Even at its worst so far, it's never fumbled anywhere near as badly as this. What the hell happened?
...
Well, Throne's cringiest beatdown continues for a few panels, with White Chain's ranting getting increasingly unhinged. Finally, Nyave runs up and interposes herself, grabbing onto White Chain's arm and snapping her out of it.
Having a human notice that she's gone berserk seems to be the right button to push. Looking around, White Chain sees that it's not just the restaurant's human staff and patrons that are cowering and staring at her as if she rather than Nice Place were the fallen one; there are some creatures that look like Servants reacting the exact same way. Covering their eyes. Hiding their children.
White Chain stares down at Nice Place's half-shattered avatar. It's not clear if the damned thing is still functional at all. It isn't moving, which could suggest that Nice Place has already noped out of here in spirit form and is rethinking some life decisions (or at least some tactical ones). White Chain then looks back at Nyave, who simply drops the shopping bag full of stuff she was trying to get her to try on earlier at White Chain's feet and then walks away. There's really not any point in continuing to spend time with White Chain, so she isn't doing it. Heck, White Chain might actually be just plain dangerous to be around right now.
I guess the resolution of this scene was well done. Too bad about the bit before that though, seriously.
Also, the under-the-page blurb for part of the fight was kinda cute:
“What’s made of stone, filled with smoke, and bleeds fire?
The best answer to that question is not to find out.”
With Nyave gone, White Chain picks up the shopping bag and looks at the scarf Nyave had gotten for her earlier, sadly. She walks away from what's left of Nice Place's synth and finds a private corner to pray to Yisun and the Multitude for forgiveness. She pries the mask off of her own avatar and holds it in front of her, the too-human, too-female visage of blue flame beneath it looking absolutely miserable. She inspects the scarf again, only now seeming to appreciate its craftsmanship and aesthetics.
Then, a hat goes flying by overhead, and White Chain has to hurry up and get her shit together.
Either Mottom's located their ship and is inbound on where they have it docked, or she got a tip that Killy is in Yre and is hurrying over to give her pal Mammon a helping hand. Or a not-so-helping hand, depending on where things sit with them at present. There's been indications that Mottom and Mammon have better relations than most of the Black Seven do with each other, but I guess "better" is a relative term.
Back in Yre, the party is advancing through the Escher Zone, dealing with traps, locks, and monsters of various sorts. The main difference between this and the Cathedral Zone, aside from the loss of Felicia, is that Incubus!Killy (Succubus? Succubus.) is now leading the way, outperforming the others in combat and magecraft as they contend with the obstacles.
Using her sword as a focus. Definitely something the "sword king" might do. And also more evidence that Incubus' deposed ex-wife was, in fact, Meti, since the sword beams are her whole thing.
While Succubus smugly saunters her way through the defenses and the devils follow her with growing awe, Killy is trapped inside her own head being tormented by some very cliched depictions of her inner demons.
This volume has really not been up to par when it comes to portraying these inner conflicts. This isn't quite as bad as the author shoving his face into the camera and shouting "DO YOU GET IT? WHITE CHAIN'S DESPAIR AND SELF-DOUBT IS MAKING HER BECOME LIKE JUGGERNAUT STAR!" a few pages ago, but it's close.
Finally, she demands that Incubus show himself. He does so, very passive aggressively. He's still in Ziggy Stardust makeup, but it's a distinctly more banal and unglamorous version of him.
Three things jump out at me in this panel. In order of ascending importance:
1. Incubus has a "#1 God" mug on his desk. I choose to believe that this isn't just Killy's mind interpreting things in a cutesy way, and that Incubus actually, physically owns that cup. It's one of his most prized possessions, unlike the worthless golden goblets that he piles up under his throne. Canon.
2. The hallucinatory corporate office schtick is very reminiscent of Himself's appearance. Assuming that this presentation is at least partly a product of Killy's own mind rather than just Incubus choosing the decor to fuck with her, then Himself's office was almost certainly the same thing. My "Incubus learned his dream magic from Himself" theory seems to be gaining evidence.
3. Looking just a little bit upward from #1, the comic really didn't make it clear until now what a dump truck Killy is packing. Cio, you need to hit that. As soon as the Incubus situation has been dealt with you need to hit that.
Anyway, Killy demands that Incubus get the hell out of her brain and take his meth lab with him. He replies that, unfortunately for her, he's not actually driving this car either. He then calls her attention to Succubus sitting behind the wheel.
She looks like Killy in Incubus cosplay, so I'm not sure how much I buy his assertion that this is totally just a part of her own personality and not an extension of him. But, that's the line he's sticking to.
The way that Incubus frames it, this is Killy's selfish, domineering, "divine" side, which he's just empowered to take the helm without any morals, doubts, or ineptitudes to hold it back. The way that it actually looks though, it's more like he gave her some kind of personality cancer. Forced her mind to create a second persona that's just partial copypaste of his. In which case, calling it an aspect of herself is still wildly misleading at best, and just an outright lie at worst, depending on how you look at it.
His statement about her "not knowing a lot of kings" is the only part of this that doesn't strike me as bullshit. Because he DOES have a good point there. Even the most well-intentioned dictator is still a dictator. Any organization as hierarchical as a monarchy requires the crushing of dissent, and any person who crushes dissent as part and parcel of their daily life will need to become a specific type of person, if they weren't that already. Going by the accounts we've heard, Killy's mentor Zoss was at least a morally grey figure, and quite possibly much worse than that.
But that's sort of orthogonal to the broader question of what Succubus actually is, of course. A question that is then complicated by the arrival of...erm...whoever this is supposed to be:
Aside from Darth Bowie in a slutty secretary outfit being an incredible thirst trap, his appearance and role here has implications. Is this just another aspect of his personality, being viewed through Killy's perspective just like her own mirror selves? In which case, this would just be his banal day-to-day politician side reminding him of what else he's got going on today (and Killy putting it in a stripper secretary suit for...well, hang on actually, is it HER mind doing that, or Incubus'? Whichever the answer is, it's hilarious).
The other possibility I can think of is that Incubus has actually divided or copied himself into multiple, semi-autonomous entities that can inhabit the minds of his clients. We heard about "anciliary battle-consciousnesses" in some of the Ys-Aesma stories, so there's lore precedent for that type of concept. In which case, Incubus might have actually turned himself into something like a distributed consciousness using those addicts, like his totemic word Flame growing as it consumes more fuel. Which would also explain why he keeps those tormented, burned-out "kings" alive in his palace. He could be using them as a server farm. In this case, I wonder if killing his main body would actually be enough to get rid of him. He is expending some effort to keep it alive using that bloodbath chamber of his, so I assume he needs it for something, but it may not be a matter of survival at this point.
...I might be overthinking this. It's probably just option A.
Anyway, Incubus either retreats his central consciousness from her mind, or just pretends to so she'll stop nagging him. It's just her and her multicolored self esteem issues versus Succubus now.
Leaving Killy's head and zooming back out to Yre again, we finally meet a living Priest of the Count making his rounds through the Escher Zone. I was wondering when we'd finally run into these guys, especially considering that the door did scream for a minute there before they fed it.
...
You know, in all likelihood Mammon has each of those doors hooked up to another, quieter alarm near the center of the fortress. That way, intruders are forced to sacrifice a party member, waste time and possibly kill others of themselves in the Battle of Not It, ruin their group trust and dynamic, and also get lured into a false sense of security thinking the alarm's been turned off when it really hasn't.
...
In any case, this priest doesn't seem particularly alerted. Also, after he turns a couple of corners in the maze this happens:
I guess that's what Ricardio and Blueberry are for, then. I really hadn't known until now. Just straight up Loony Toons powers.
Are they going to stick that mask on him and use it to possess him or something? Hmm, no, looks more like Ricardio is forcing the guy to model for Blueberry. Either a voodoo doll sort of control deal, or just a disguise power that requires a realistically painted mask.
Turns out it's the second one. A stiff, nervous-looking version of that priest later approaches a group of his fellows who are camped out around a small tower-like structure where they appear to be guarding a glowing little metal disc. "He" goes inside, waits for his fellows to cluster around him, and then shoots a bunch of bullets out of his face and kills them all.
Okay, Blueberry and Ricardio are the best devils. Forget Killy, I want a comic about them.
With this group of priests dispatched, the rest of the party comes out of hiding. Cio takes the token from Ricardio, and informs them that this is one of the coins Mammon paid the mercenaries who wiped out his clan. It's apparently an item of sentimental value to him.
Also, the fact that these coins that he paid to someone else have somehow made it back into his treasury kind of illustrates a point of its own.
It turns out that the reason the coin has in its own little guardpost being watched over was because it's the key to yet another door; one that's a little too sturdy for Succubus to blast open (at least without causing unwanted side effects). The door in question has some thematic decorations that the key fits with.
O....kayyyy.
This feels off.
Really off.
Not in a "wow Mammon must be a real psycho" way, though. Him being so fixated on the familicide this long after the fact, when he's done so much (and killed so many) since then...it doesn't feel right. Mottom didn't decorate her palace with an "I killed my husband" motif. I doubt Incubus has statues of himself stealing his wife's kingdom everywhere. On top of that, the ritualistic, worshipful way that this is all displayed, especially the mummified bodies of those elders we passed earlier...none of it fits with a man who holds his people in contempt and saw his family as a mere obstacle to be removed. Granted, there might be some alien psychology at work here - kindies aren't humans, and Mammon may not act on these sentiments the same way that a human would - but even so this feels off.
Really, the temple-like presentation makes it feel more like the murder of his family was part of a ritual. Like, he sacrificed them as part of some kind of spell, and the relevant iconography taps into that. Maybe creating this infinite magic fortress required him to spill the blood of his own kin? That would explain their prominence in Yre's decoration scheme. It might even be why he has those mummified elders displayed like that; they could be an important part of the fortress' magical "machinery." Something like that, at least.
I suspect that by the end of this volume, we'll be getting a more complete backstory for Mammon than the one Charon gave us earlier. Likely from Mammon himself, going by the precedent Mottom set.
In any case, opening this door was the last thing Cio remembers from Yabalchoath's infiltration. So, they open it, and reach Yre level three.
This seems like it should be easier for them to deal with than the previous zones, given that there's enough space in here for Cio's origami pterosaur. But there's probably a catch. Maybe involving that very conspicuous, very unusually red torch burning far below. Also, Mottom is going to arrive in probably just a few minutes, so that's going to make things a lot more hectic regardless of what else Yre has in store.
Anyway! I'll call that a stopping point. This is definitely the most uneven K6BD volume in quality. I'm not sure if I can call it the weakest, since its highs are very high, but at the same time the lows are just embarrassing.
