Lord of Entertainment C510 Arthur's Pantheon Ascends, the Tamer Era Begins

(3rd Person POV)

A week had passed.

The civilians hadn't the faintest idea, but the world already sat in the palm of Arthur's hand. Life went on the way it always had — markets open, prayers still rising to the Three Known Deities, that faith thinner now but far from gone. On the surface, nothing had changed.

Underneath, everything had.

In the Royal Court of Wales Kingdom, the high-ranking men who'd once schemed against Arthur were being taken away by the Solarus Church, one after another — arrests no one could quite explain.

Even Drakon, untouched since he'd kept his own hands mostly clean, couldn't make sense of it. "What in the world is going on?" he muttered, watching another peer marched off. "Something's wrong here. Badly wrong."

He wasn't alone in feeling it. Others caught the same crooked wrongness in the air.

But none of them could prove a thing, because the truth sat far above anything they could reach.

Who would ever guess that the Solarus Church now answered to Arthur? That the Moon Goddess did? That the God of Crafts did? Say it aloud and they'd laugh you out of the room.

So for now, the world stayed peaceful.

---

Inside the great hall of Arthur's home, they had gathered: Mephista, Vermillion in his boy's shape, Keanu, Kaiser — and Arthur, with Firfel seated at his side.

"I've called you all here to announce the founding of the Hellfire Pantheon." Arthur raised his wine glass. "From this moment on, I take the seat of King of Gods within it. And I name my wife, Firfel, Queen of the Gods."

The angels lining the hall like attendants brought their hands together in graceful applause.

At the long table, Mephista, Keanu, and the rest rose and bowed their heads toward the seated pair.

"All hail the God King and God Queen!"

Arthur and Firfel returned it with quiet smiles.

Then a warm light welled up in the hall, threading out from the two of them to every god present, binding each to each. In that moment they stopped being allies gathered in a room and became something else — one family, one pantheon, joined.

The ceremony gave way to celebration.

This was the New Order. The world stood at the edge of a new age, and this pantheon would be the shape of it.

---

"Now — everyone, look at this." Arthur held up a small sphere. "I made it myself. I want to use it to grow Lady Mephista's following." He turned the Poké Ball over in the light.

"...What is that?"

"There's Space woven into it. I can feel it."

"Looks strange."

Mephista studied the little thing. "And what exactly is it, Your Highness?" Ancestor of his though she was, the pantheon stood built now, and within it she ranked below him.

"I know that ball!" Firfel sat up straight. "That's from the anime you put out a few months back, isn't it? Pokémon?"

"It is." Arthur nodded. "I've built an entirely new way for a person to bond a beast to themselves."

"Oh?" Mephista leaned in.

"The tamer throws it at a weakened beast, and the ball takes the creature in." Arthur mimed the toss. "Then it shakes. If it holds — if the beast can't break back out — the contract's sealed. If not, the beast goes free, and they try again."

Her eyes brightened. "...How clever."

"Right?" Arthur smiled. "So — as head of the pantheon, I'd like everyone's agreement on this 'taming law' of mine."

He plucked a sheet of contract from the empty air. "Sign here if you're for it. Object if you're not; we're democrats, after all. Whichever way the count falls, that's the way we go."

It was courtesy and nothing more, and everyone knew it. One by one they signed on. Kaiser marked down his objection with a straight face and a glint in his eye, purely to be contrary — but a single 'no' against the rest meant the law stood all the same.

And the instant it did, with a God of Beasts seated in the pantheon, the very rules of beast-taming across the world bent to match. A tamer could now force a weakened beast into a bond whether the creature consented or not.

Hard on the beasts, certainly. Mephista didn't lose a moment's sleep over it.

"Now then." Arthur lifted a hand. "One more law, if you'll indulge me. That the beasts our God of Beasts brings into the world take after these." Images bloomed in the air around them, one after another — Pikachu, and a whole parade behind it.

Mephista's brow furrowed. "You want me to make creatures shaped like... these? There's not an intimidating one in the lot."

"Doesn't scare me either." Vermillion puffed out his chest.

"Please, Lady Mephista, I'm begging you — make them!" Firfel was halfway out of her seat, all but steaming at the nostrils.

"...You're this worked up over it?" Mephista blinked at her. With the Queen of the Gods herself pleading, there was no graceful way to refuse. She let out a breath. "Very well. If it's your wish, Your Highness."

"Here's what each of them is — temperament, abilities, all of it." Arthur passed the knowledge straight into her mind.

She was caught off guard by what she found there. These were no simple animals. They grew. They changed shape as they gained strength, and how far they climbed hinged on the one who raised them. Cruel as the forced taming was, a bond like that gave the owner every reason to treat the creature well.

"...I see." Something eased in her expression. "I'll make them now."

She drew on her power, and eggs took shape in the air in front of her.

"Eggs?" Firfel tilted her head.

"Inside each one is the exact creature from Lord Arthur's images." Mephista nodded at them. "Only waiting to be born."

"Ooh! Can I hatch them? Now?"

"Feed your own power into them and they'll come along." Mephista's voice dipped, a little weary. "I'm rationing my Divine Energy as it is — no faith flows to me yet, so eggs are the most I can manage for the moment."

That was all the leave Firfel needed. She'd adored these creatures for as long as she could remember, and she poured everything she had into the shells.

It didn't take long. The eggs split, and the favorite of them all — Pikachu, faint thunder crackling through its fur — blinked its eyes open.

"Pika, pika?" It cocked its head at the ring of strange faces around it.

"It really is Pikachu!" Firfel was across the floor in a heartbeat, scooping it up into her arms.

"And here's Bulbasaur. Charizard, too." Arthur gathered up the newly hatched creatures, his eyes bright with a grin he didn't bother hiding.

Not even the angels could hold out against something that adorable. Neither, for that matter, could Mephista, who had made them.

Off to the side, Vermillion watched the whole thing with a sour twist to his mouth. 'What's everyone fussing over? Little things like that don't even look strong.'

What the old dragon didn't yet understand was that this was the shape of a new age of taming — one where even the weakest soul, with barely a scrap of magic to their name, might raise a dragon-type strong enough to shake the sky, so long as they had the patience to let it grow.