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While Nana and Wanta were also convinced to stay at the Kaede Inn because of their injuries, Mayu was concerned about the well-being of her friend, Nyu, as well as the well-being of Bandou, a man that she felt was honorable underneath his agressive exterior. Whatever the outcome, one of those two would end up very badly hurt, if not dead. "Wait, do you two really have to fight?", Mayu inquired worriedly. Bandou looked at Mayu, while just realizing the truth of the information Mayu had kept from him. He replied while suppressing his anger, "You were keeping it a secret from me... That you knew her... Was it funny? Watching me wandering in confusion, making my rounds searching for her..." Mayu immediately responded, "Th... That's not so!!" But Bandou wouldn't listen to her explanation even if she had one and continued his statement, "I don't ever want to see you again. Got it?" He turned to Lucy and said, "Horned woman. Let's go." He then turned to Laharl, Etna, Flonne, and the present Prinny Squad and stated "You kids come at your own risk." He and Lucy started their way to the beach, while Mayu moped. On one hand, she had lost Bandou's trust and friendship, and she, at least, wanted to respect his wish of not seeing her again. On the other hand, she was stilled concerned about him and Nyu. Seeing her dilemma, Flonne walked over to Mayu and said, "Even though he said not to see him again, if you really feel concerned about this situation, you should go meet him again at least once more, if only to apologize." Etna interrupted, "Are you sure that such a good idea? I mean, that guy seemed pissed." The voices of the older (AN: Yeah, a LOT older) girls snapped Mayu out of her moping. As she was about to speak, Laharl yelled out, "If we wait any longer, it's going to be over by the time we get there. I'm going on ahead of you slowpokes." Realizing this, Etna and Flonne followed after Laharl while leading a small group of Prinnies. Mayu strengthened her resolve and ran after them, as well. As Lucy and Bandou trekked toward the beach that was to be the place of their final showdown, they saw four figures, one of the black-coated mercenary, and three were of emotionless-looking men wearing dark square sunglasses, suits, ties, pants, etc. The mercenary was explaining his situation to the three other men, "I did find a Diclonius, but some flat-chested redhead b***h wearing leather interfered and..." He was cut off when one of the dark-green-suited men stated, "That still doesn't explain why you lost the tracker." The mercenary responded, "That Diclonius was useless, so I..." He was cut off once again when another dark-green-suited man continued, "No, you are the useless one." This was followed when the last of the three dark-suited men, of the Agents, wearing a pure black suit, continued, "Never send a human to do a machine's job." This was followed promptly by the black-suited Agent palming the mercenary's head like a basketball and, with superhuman strength and ease, popping it like a rotten tomato. The black-suited Agent spoke, "Elimination of useless liability complete." The first green-suited Agent spoke, "Perhaps that was a bit too rash, Agent Smith." The second green-suited Agent spoke, "That mercenary's vitals are of little value. His life or death is inconsequential, Agent Jones." The first green-suited Agent, known now as Agent Jones, spoke, "I was not referring to that human's life, but Agent Smith's actions, Agent Brown. That independent action may be a glitch in your programming, Agent Smith. After this mission, return to have a checkup." The black-suit Agent, Smith, spoke, "Confirmed." Bandou, watching this, was quite perturbed that the beach that he had worked so hard to clean to prepare for his revenge was now littered with the headless corpse of some guy. He yelled out to the three Agents, "What the f*ck are you @$$holes doing, messing up this perfectly clean beach!?" The three Agents casually turned to Bandou. Agent Smith said, "Insignificant factor. We continue our assigned mission. Capture the woman next to him." Agent Brown corrected Agent Smith and said, "He is not a completely insignificant factor. He has a miniscule amount of significance. He is with the female Diclonius. He is a witness to be eliminated." Being ignored and underestimated greatly angered Bandou who charged forward to beat down the suited men. This was quickly countered when Agent Jones tapped Bandou away. To Bandou, this tap felt more like a direct punch, and he was easily knocked down, injured. When Mayu, who was following Laharl's group to the beach, saw Bandou on the ground, she ran past Laharl's group to Bandou's aid. Because of this, though the Agents didn't notice Laharl's group yet, they saw a new factor, another weaker human witness, Mayu. The Agents opened fire, but at that moment, Bandou managed to get a second wind. He jumped in front of Mayu, right in front of the Agents' gunfire. One of those bullets, Desert Eagle rounds, entered his skull, splattering his brains. Seeing the instant yet gruesome death, Mayu yelled out, "NOOOOOOOO!" and fainted. Agent Jones began to reaim but was decapitated quickly by one of Lucy's vectors. The Agents, having received retaliation, readied themselves for battle, alerting their senses. Lucy, thinking they're human albeit a bit stronger, attacked with her vectors. The Agents' design had prepared for this with vector-scope eyes, inhumanly fast reaction, and extra-flexible torsos. They dodged all of Lucy's vectors by bending and moving out of the way (AN: A la The Matrix, which belongs to the Wachowski Brothers and Joel Silver). Agents Smith and Brown fired a shot each at Lucy, aiming at non-vital areas, intending to cause her pain, so she wouldn't be able to use her vectors, and capture her alive. She tried to blocked them with her vectors, but the heavy rounds of the Desert Eagle pushed through her vectors and hit their non-lethal mark. The remaining two Agents moved in for the capture. Laharl, who was watching from the shadows with his group, had seen enough and jumped out forward. "How dare you attack my potential vassals!", he yelled. The Agents, not recognizing their new target as human or Diclonius, inquired, "What is this unknown facto..." That was the last they said as Agent Smith was blown away, and Agent Brown was blasted apart revealing his mechanized insides. Flonne walked up to Mayu and held the unconscious girl, who has experienced two traumas today. Etna noticed something shiny glowing from Agent Brown's remains. "Hey, Prince, what do you think this is?", she asked Laharl. Laharl, being a hands-on kind of person, picked up a silver mineral fragment from the body of Agent Brown, but as soon as his hands touched the silver, an immense burning sensation came over him. Yelling in pain, he dropped the fragment. "Prince, what's up!?", Etna asked, suprisingly. "I don't know, but it felt like that rock was purifying my demonic power like Flonne's pendant was before!", yelled Laharl. He felt his neck; Flonne's pendant was safely around it, not burning him, so this new mineral couldn't have been the same as Flonne's pendant. Flonne, still holding Mayu, realized what the mysterious silver was. She put on teacher's glasses (AN: Any Flonne fans with a glasses fetish?), took out her old Angel Trainee handbook that she was still keeping for some reason, and began to read a section which explained the silver ore's origins to Laharl and Etna, "The Angel Trainee handbook talks about the history of this ore in the section about angelic history. Long ago, Celestia was ruled by the Seraph Shamshel. He was known as the Lonely Conqueror of God because of his hatred toward demons and their friends, demon or otherwise." "Kinda like that Vulcanus guy", Etna interrupted. "Yeah, kinda like Master Vulcanus", continued Flonne, "But Seraph Shamshel was much more cruel toward demonkind. He captured many demons and experimented on them to find a weakness." As Flonne was explaining, Lucy thought about the relationship of angels and demons with that of humans and Diclonii. Flonne continued, "First he found a blue ore that worked on some demons, but not all. My pendant that Laharl's holding onto is made of that ore. It discerns good and evil and punishes evil. However, Seraph Shamshel believed that all demons are inherently evil and called the blue ore that didn't punish some demons and even caused him some pain defective. One day, he found an underground vein of a mysterious silver ore. This ore seemed to increase his power upon contact and purified any demonic aura from all demons. Realizing this was just what he needed for his self-righteous Crusade, he opened a mine at the vein and with weapons forged from the ore, he laid waste to many Netherworlds. Among the Archangels at the time, one was named Summer. She first believed Seraph Shamshel was working simply to protect Celestian interests, but after seeing the carnage, she knew that Seraph Shamshel was only working for his own ego and prejudices. She challenged him to a battle of hearts' purity and honor and won. In the end, she spared his life, and he went into exile. Because she was popular amongst many angels, she was appointed the new Seraph. Seraph Summer then shut down the silver mine and retracted all Celestian forces from foreign worlds, however she still kept up the gate to prevent retaliatory attacks from the Netherworld. The End." Flonne then closed the handbook as if finishing a bedtime story. Laharl responded, "So then the gate remained closed until we opened it to investigate the EDF attacks." "That's right," Flonne said, "And because of that Celestia established a peace treaty with the Netherworld through you and Master Lamington." Laharl contemplated, "But now someone reopened the mine and gave the silver ore to the humans in order to power these androids, huh? Well, powered by that rock or not, these metal dumbos were still created by human and therefore no threat to me. Our vacation will continue undeterred." Flonne thought for a moment and said, "All right, but I'll keep a piece of this silver. I must talk with Master Lamington about this when we go back." Laharl agreed. Lucy who was also listening responded, "So you're saying that that human organization that suppresses my kind just got a new ally?" Laharl answered Lucy, "Yeah, pretty much. If you know where they are, then it'd help me a lot to get revenge on them for ruining my vacation." To this, Lucy said, "No, I don't. I drifted from there to here by random, so I have no recollection of the way back, though I would think that my revenge on them is much more serious. But anyway, do you want me to carry Mayu back to the house?" "No need", Etna said as she ordered the Prinnies to take out a convenient mattress and used that to carry Mayu back to the Maple (AN: I may change from using Maple to Kaede whenever I feel like it) Inn. On the way back, Lucy asked Laharl, "What did you mean by "potential vassals"? I've no intention of working under anyone." To this, Laharl simply paused for a moment and walked on. When they returned, Lucy explained the situation to Kohta and the rest. They decided it was best to live someplace safer for a while, and because Laharl's vacation mansion has so many rooms, they decided to live there. Meanwhile at the Containment/Research/Execution Facility , the combat data that Agent Smith brought back revealed to Kakuzawa and the white-winged man the factor of the demons...

Next Chapter Preview Skit:
Laharl: Well, it certainly took a while for this chapter to be finished.
Nana: Yeah, this was extremely long compared to the previous chapter. It even took 3 parts to finish.
Etna: Who writes this, anyway?
Flonne: Apparently, Mr. Midboss does.
Laharl: Really? Midboss?
Lucy: Who is this "Midboss"?
Laharl: Just someone really annoying. You'll probably meet him later on. Anyway, next chapter...
Suddenly, a high-pitched laugh occurs.
Laharl: What. Was. That? That sounded more annoying than Midboss's laugh.
Etna: Even more annoying than yours, Prince.
Laharl: Hey, my laugh isn't annoying. (To Lucy and Nana) Here, I'll show you, haaaahahahaha!
Nana: ...
Lucy: ...
Nana: Well, my Papa told me not to say anything, if I don't have anything good to say...
Lucy: OK, not as annoying as the one before, but still quite irritating.
Laharl (attempts to hold in his anger and embarassment): Well, anyway, what was the source of that other laugh?
Etna: I don't know, but...
Suddenly the characters decide to look at the moon, which begins to show a bloody smiley-face...

Much longer than Chapter 1. Quality might have decreased from being dragged on. As always, feel free to read, comment (here or in the entry), and give suggestions (which I desperately need) for the next chapter.