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Xager the Chaos King

Greg Gibson

If you want your name on the lists of my stories and videos, head over to P a t. R e . o n and search for the Temple Walkers. Just let us know you're from Fanfiction, alright? There's a thousand of you, so a dollar a piece would really add up and help me a lot! Once I reach five hundred Supporters of any value over a dollar, I will make a concerted effort to put out a chapter of something once every three days at the very slowest.

As of now, The channel and I are struggling financially. So please, if you're able, become a Supporter. We'll be uploading art and concepts soonish on a project of my own making too, and you'll get to be a part of it~! And I'll get dinner as a side benefit~!

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Jaune groaned quietly as he woke finally, flinching in expectation of agony and pain that never came. After a second, he relaxed and noticed a great many things all in the same moment.

First was where he happened to be laying. Rather than on the ground below the bridge he last remembered fighting on and being hurled bodily off of by a might blow of the massive Deathstalker's claws shattering the stone under him and leaving him to plummet into the canyon. Instead of whatever was down there below the ruined bridge at the cliff's edge, he felt a comfortable mattress under him. Not lumpy, but soft as down and warm underneath him. It was the most comfortable thing he'd ever felt in his entire lifetime. Easily. Better even than that hotel in Vale's own mattresses, which were the previous holder of the 'most comfortable place for Jaune's back' award.

Then he felt a warm weight on his chest shift and heard a distinctly feminine and distinctly relaxed something sigh in contentment and went incredibly still where he lay. He blinked in surprise when he felt plump, full, and very concerningly bare breasts pressed against his equally bare side and on top of them as the large mounds molded against him along with an odd sensation of resignation and acceptance.

Which were odd emotions for Jaune to be feeling with a naked woman in bed with him, he was sure. Jaune had never been with a woman, obviously to many he was certain, so being in bed with a naked one should have brought very different feelings to him.

Curious, he looked down at an incredibly beautiful sleeping woman with long, dark hair, who he didn't recognize in the slightest. He had his right arm around her shoulders and his left on his stomach. She shifted again, nuzzling against his muscled chest above the blankets, and he noticed her pointed ears with some mild curiosity. But when she shifted yet again, her blanket falling from her chest and letting him see the very 'assets' pressed against his side, he couldn't bring himself to care about her ears.

But he pulled his attention away from her still, feeling an odd pull to look at his forearm, where an odd weight was resting. When he raised it to get a look, he felt pride and greed course through him with a strange burning sensation, not of his own accord in either case, at what he saw. The emotions welled up all on their own, as naturally as breathing, when he looked at what his arm bore.

His hand was armored, cased in a heavy black gauntlet with a fiery orange gem encased in it just behind the hand, fur under it and what felt like leather beyond. He clenched his fist and its glow smoldered satisfyingly before he felt the woman stir beside him, looking to her sleepy but surprisingly excited blue eyes for a moment.

She smiled, opening her mouth to speak and pulling herself closer against him and up his chest, and Jaune's sight failed.

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This time, when he awoke, the mattress he lay on was lumpy and uncomfortable, and only a thin blanket protected him from the chilly air around him. When he moved his left arm, he felt pain lance up it, but he had to see it. Had to see what he felt there. Something deep down inside of him drove him to see the source of the weight he felt there. Like a maddening itch at the back of his mind that wouldn't calm until he saw the same plated gauntlet as in his dream there, glowing faintly in the armor piece. An itching ache that forced him to see its source, draw him to it inexorably, to the gem set into it particularly.

Well, not exactly the same, he noticed after a moment of looking and a blink to clear the sleep from his eyes.

The fur had been removed entirely, and the armor itself was slimmer and lighter looking than the one in his dreams had been. Smoother, too, lacking the harsh and jagged spikes of the other, aside from the pointed tips of his fingers that were sharp enough he felt reasonably certain could cut as easily as Crocea Mors and the small spikes on the knuckles, hardened tips that just looked vicious enough to maim.

As it was here and now, it looked a lot like a normal plated gauntlet, aside from the gem embedded into the metal and glowing faintly. Not quite of course, with the pointed tips and the claws on the fingers, but pretty damn close.

With those things, he'd be able to rip into Grimm hide and rip into metal easily, though how he knew that he didn't know for sure. It felt like an instinct, almost, a simple sense that his mind and body acknowledged that the gauntlet could rip and tear easily. The same way he knew when he took a step, his legs would move and the muscles and bones would shift to take his weight.

He turned his hand, looking at his palm and saw fine and dark, stitched leather there, smooth like the richest kinds of leather, usually made of fox or rabbit, that he had seen around Ansel on occasion. When he clenched and unclenched his fist, it moved as naturally as his own flesh and blood, and he could swear he could feel through it. He regarded it for a moment, wondering what on Remnant it really was, before letting his arm drop to his side with a muted thump.

He forced his head to turn in spite of the discomfort the action elicited, a dull ache and throb he ignored while looking around the empty room and taking in his surroundings.

The room itself was wide and taller than the room he had in Ansel almost by half, a massive window with a balcony outside of it open and letting in a chilly breeze, but no light came in. It was dark outside, he guessed by the chill wind and lack of light, and the hearth beside the opening and between it and the door was empty as the room itself was.

The structure itself was made of stone brickwork along the walls, aside from the exterior ones and the roof, which seemed to be solid and smooth, natural stone like what he'd seen pictures of from the fancier, more expensive manors and mansions in Atlas and Mistral. Hence the chill, probably, he thought with a touch of bitterness. Mostly from how sore he was, pain radiating across his body in waves in time with his heartbeat as he shifted.

Which was odd, considering they seemed to be high up, judging from the uninterrupted view of the sky outside.

He coughed, his throat sore and dry and throbbing with faint pain he didn't quite know the source of, and forced out a weak, "H-Hello?"

It only took a second for his ears to pick out the pattering of bare feet on stone at his call, the building he was in otherwise silent as the grave. It stopped by his door and he heard a quiet but distinct rustling of cloth, before… something about the height of his knees stepped into the room, with dark skin and wispy hairs on its eyebrows and chin, wearing torn robes and with an odd glowing crystal hanging from a stick on its bowed back.

He watched, mouth agape in surprise at the creature's sudden appearance, as the creature approached slowly until it was beside his shoulders near the head of the bed, as though worried about frightening him, and held out a small red flask shaped like a tear drop and about the size of his hand and already opened, "Drink this, Dark Lord. It will make you feel better."

He looked at it, and then the creature, worry and fear clear on his face. "W-Who…?"

He choked and swallowed painfully, and the creature gestured with the small flask again, Jaune grimacing and taking it after a second more of hesitating. Normally, he wouldn't just drink something like this, but his throat felt like raw sandpaper…

"I am Gnarl, a Minion, living here in this Tower." He said quietly, looking at the flask with his eyes and nodding towards it, "This is medicine and beverage both, I made it special for you a short while ago, Master. Drink it, and we can talk, without you gasping like a fish every couple words. If I wanted you dead, I would have left in the chasm where I and the other Minions found your… Well, you."

When he downed it, the drink left behind a tingling numbness, with a hint of honey flavor that warmed Jaune from his core outward. Like hot chocolate, but tasting of honey and sugar and something else he couldn't place but enjoyed nonetheless. When he finished the drink, the warmth started to seep out of the glass, quicker than normal.

The medicine itself seemed to take effect quickly, the pain in his body vanishing within a minute, and Jaune couldn't help but smile in surprise at it, "Wow… I've never had medicine like that."

"A potion, actually, Lordship." Gnarl offered helpfully, taking the flask from him when he offered it and regarding the small glass container with an uncaring expression, before casually flinging it behind him and out the door where Jaune heard it shatter, "Someone will clean that up, forget about it. Anyways, that was a potion. It interacts with any body which has Mana naturally flowing through it, and mends wounds."

"Mana?"

"Yes, Mana." Jaune shifted uncomfortably after a second of silence, and Gnarly blinked as he realized with a nervous laugh, "Ah, uh, you wanted an explanation about it, I assume? Well, Mana is the energy within a person which allows them to use Magic spells and items." He reached out to tap a finger on his armored gauntlet, "Like this. An item only an Overlord can wear."

"That sounds like Aura..." Jaune asked, raising his arm to look at the faintly glowing gem again. "What's an Overlord?"

"Please, great and mighty Overlord, don't compare true Magic to… To that weak, watered down tripe Humans managed to figure out after centuries of dying and fighting monsters with sticks!" He sighed, taking a deep breath and shaking his small, bearded head. "An Overlord is… Well, honestly, it's kind of complicated. Most simply put, it's the one person who rules over my species, the Minions. For whatever ends they want, but especially the evil ones."

"Evil, as in…?"

"Conquering empires, razing villages, enslaving peasants, raping women. Or men, no judgement here if that's your preference, Overlord." Gnarl rattled off, smiling whimsically at the idea before sighing.

"It sounds awful…"

"Ah, but those were the good old days, Lord, ravaging the lands and doing as we pleased under our beloved Overlord's thumb… Truly, the best of times." The Minion sighed again, shaking himself out of his reverie, "Of course, you don't have to do any of that. For now, just worry about repairing the Tower, Sire. You can decide what you want to burn down or protect," he practically spat the word protect, and Jaune knew his opinion just from that, "then, and the Minions will follow you eagerly. But first, a tour! A must have for every new Overlord's induction phase." Gnarl turned to head for the hallways, and Jaune made to follow quickly, two of his strides easily catching the smaller creature even with his head start. "This isn't actually the Tower, Master, it's a reconstruction. The original Tower was destroyed, its Heart saved and moved to a new location. Also, destroyed. Then moved again when the new Tower fell. And again, not three months later."

"It... Gets destroyed a lot." Jaune observed as they descended the spiral staircase.

"Yes, the perils of being an evil Overlord and leading an army of evil to conquer the known and unknown places of the world, I'm afraid. What can an evil creature do, eh?" Gnarl sighed uncaringly, Jaune shaking his head disbelievingly about how little the Minion seemed to care about losing his home. "Ah, this is the Throne Room. Please ignore the dirt, dust, rubble and corpses, Master, we are… Renovating."

The Throne Room was round and large, about the size of the auditorium he'd slept in at Beacon. A dirty pool with a fallen pillar resting in it sat at the far end, open to the air judging from the stars Jaune could see and cold as well from the snow that fell slowly outside, and with two small doors to either side that Gnarl said were stairs leading out of the Tower by descending all the way through the Tower uninterrupted until they opened out into a courtyard. A dozen small brown creatures like Gnarl waded in the water and climbed on the pillar itself, floundering and trying to remove the pillar by dragging it towards the window and jumping on it.

"Wait-" He started, before they managed to nudge it over and it tumbled away with at least five of them still holding on. The others ran to the edge, and Jaune heard it smash on the ground far below, and the Minions cheered happily at the apparently satisfactory success, "Those Minions just got killed…"

"They are Minions, Master." Gnarl observed simply, Jaune looking at him. He raised an eyebrow and shrugged, "They… tend to die. A lot. It's their job, dying for you. It's ranked just under 'killing for you' in terms of frequency and just above 'carrying your stuff around when you can't be bothered to.'"

"That's kind of depressing." Jaune said, Gnarl shrugging. He gestured with his armored hand at the window, "Should we… Have a funeral, or something?"

"Lord, if we did that every time a Minion lost its pathetic little life, we'd spend every day on them." Gnarl sighed, watching one of the Minions hop onto the balcony railing and lean over to look at the mess below. The piece of stone cracked, and it shrieked as it fell away, "Ugh, see, Lord? You send ten to fetch your meal, and only eight will return! Best to just let them go when they go and move on."

"I guess." Jaune grimaced, shaking his head, "Just seems a bit…"

"Evil?" Gnarl suggested, chuckling when Jaune nodded after a second. He chuckled low in his throat and turned, "Yes, Lord, well… That's kind of the point in case you had missed it. Now, let us move on, shall we?"

Two large, arched doors big enough for three mean to pass through breast and tall as two of them at their highest were on either side of the Throne Room's entryway, between the pool and the main area of the Throne Room where the actual throne sat. According to Gnarl, one led to the forges and the other to the Hives, where Minions were born. Only Browns for now, which he promised to explain later.

At the back of the entryway, with Crocea Mors leaning against the throne itself, the throne sat. Raised up by several feet on a high platform with unlit and damaged round braziers to either side, four spikes on one and three on the other with one broken off and lying beside it on the floor. The throne was carved of dark stone slabs and roughly done so, a solid chair of rock sitting on the dais with a thin, probably useless pillow on it and pressed against the back wall and depressed into it a few feet. The curved wall it was set into was smooth and unornamented dark stone. Ten small steps led up the semicircle of the platform, radiating out from the wall.

"That is the Throne, Master." Gnarl explained, Jaune nodding with a sarcastic look on his face. Gnarl noticed and shook his head, "It's more than just a chair, Master. It is a Throne. When you sit upon it, the Tower Heart synchronises with your own, suffusing you with Mana and healing your wounds. That's not all it can do either, if all the… facilities were functioning, it could do much, much more."

"Like what?" He asked, stepping up the steps towards the Throne with Gnarl on his heels. The seat was large enough for him to sit comfortably, at least it looked like it. It almost looked made for him, the sizing was different from normal furniture and made to fit a specific height. His height. "You had me masured?"

"Of course." He nodded, smiling widely, "While we sedated you, dragged you through the Tower to your bed, and then set all of your bones."

"I was that bad?" He asked quietly, grimacing at the idea and turning to sit on the Throne. Gnarl nodded, but chose to stay quiet, and Jaune continued, "I need to get back to Beacon, Gnarl. I have classes to get to, studies, if I want to help people. A Huntsman needs to be trained properly to do his job."

"Master, if I may… Speak freely?" Jaune nodded, gesturing with the gauntleted hand in a waving motion instinctively, and Gnarl's eyes seemed to follow the armored hand with an oddly keen interest. Swallowing, he straightened as much as his crooked back would allow, and spoke, "Well, Master, I don't think that going back to that place will serve your desires better than being here, and ruling as Overlord."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you see, Master, I understand what you want. Even if I don't want it, you want to be able to protect people and to save them." Jaune nodded, and Gnarl smiled knowingly, "Well, what is it a person needs to be able to protect people?"

"Strength and training." Jaune answered quickly, Gnarl's smile only growing as he nodded.

"Yes, Master! Strength, and the training to use it." He bowed his head, presenting himself prostrate for the Overlord on his throne, "I am Gnarl, Master. Oldest and wisest of the Minions, and your most humble of servants."

"And, should you allow it, your teacher in arts arcane and twisted enough that even these base creatures called Grimm fear them. Fire, Lightning, Ice, and weapons unlike any other are yours but to take from where they rest. And an army as well, to help you do the taking." Gnarl looked up at the end of that, smiling viciously, "Minions are experts in ripping, tearing, maiming, and ying, Master. And all of that is useful for defending useless peasants you wish to rule."

"But I don't want to rule." Jaune argued, Gnarl sighing and shaking his head as he straightened.

"All due respect, Master, but bullshit." Jaune blinked in surprise at the Minion's tone, and the creature hurried to explain. "The Tower Heart would not have chosen you if you were neither evil nor ambitious. If you didn't wish to destroy or rule, you would be a stinking corpse by now, lying in a canyon or in a hole in the ground. That's just the way the Heart works."

"But…" Jaune shook his head, trying to find the right words to argue with the Minions', and then looked to his gauntlet with a small grimace. The stone seemed to glow dimly, warmth seeping through the gauntlet and into him with a reassuring familiarity. He returned his eyes to Gnarl's, "I'm not a ruler, like the kings I used to read about. I don't want to be... To be a tyrant."

"Why not?" Gnarl asked, Jaune's eyes narrowing at the frank question as the Minion straightened, rubbing its back with a hand and grumbling… "Getting too old for grovelling, maybe Jester should do it for me… Anyways, why not be a tyrant? There's no rules saying that you can't be the biggest tyrant in history, and not be a swell guy. And even if there were, You're the Overlord! Breaking rules is the nature of every bone in your evil body! Why, I would bet good Minions that you've broken a few laws already."

Jaune couldn't argue there… He'd stolen Crocea Mors, bought fake papers, lied on enrollment forms for a Huntsman Academy, and illegally had his Aura activated. Even if that kind of tied into the one before it, it was still a separate law. Multiple felonies, multiple things people called immoral…

But what if they'd worked and he'd saved lives? Would that have vindicated what he'd done? Made the immoral moral in its success at helping people?

"I… I guess that it wouldn't hurt, to stick around and learn how to fight, at least." He pointed an armored finger at him and the Minion shrunk in on itself deferentially, "But I'm only thinking about it. You understand, Gnarl?"

"Of course, Lord." Gnarl said, inclining his head politely and serviley, "Whatever your heart desires, my most evil Master. So long as you are our Overlord, you have our absolute loyalty to the very last of our days. Now then, that dealt with, shall we begin restoring your Tower?"

Jaune couldn't help the smile that grew at that wording, feeling his ego burn inside him as he reclined against the stone seat and drummed armored fingertips on the stone arm, "Let's see about getting my room fixed up? And I need to know where on Remnant I actually am."

"The northern continent, Lordship." Gnarl answered simply, shrugging, "Afraid I don't know the name. I tried asking some of the soldiers while they were ransacking the old Tower, about eight thousand years and change ago, but they weren't very helpful. Unless you think 'Die you gangly shit' is the name of the continent? Or maybe 'Aaah, my leg, quit biting my leg? Jester got me that one, I… don't think it's right either."

"Mantel." Jaune offered, Gnarl raising an eyebrow at him. Shrugging, Jaune explained, "The northern continent's name is Mantel. As far as I know, that includes the arctic circle. The land and ice over it, at least."

"Well, there you go, Lord. Glad we could figure that out, it surely would have been impossible without my aid." Jaune raised his eyebrow, but Gnarl turned away with a wave of his hands, "Now, now, no need to thank me. I live to serve, My Lord. Anyways, we've much to do, so let's get to it shall we?"

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So, the intro to a new story, at the pseudo-request of Supporter Xager. I hope to blend the universes well, going forward, and welcome tips, suggestions and advice. As a quick note, yes, Gnarl is missing some snark and comedy. He didn't want to come on too strong to Jaune himself, and I needed to get the introduction done before I could move on.

Hope you enjoy.

EDIT : I redid some stuff, corrected some problems and a few other simple things. I am not even remotely letting that shit go any more.