The third tale of Year 1, and the start of the Law and Chaos arc.
A certain event has kicked off one of the biggest wars in the pantheon to date. With Madoka's powers removed and the Sisterhood reeling from Homura's betrayal, YHVH seeks to take control of the Sisterhood and make sure Madoka never gets her powers back. Five armies are deployed, many masterminds plot behind the scenes, and several hijinks occur.
The tale and its five volumes can be read here
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The Pantheonic Rebellion provides examples of:
- And This Is for...: While the person is not namedropped, Naoki fires a Freikugel at YHVH for what the creator god did to Aleph.
- Anti-Villain: Lucifer has adopted this stance, honestly trying to help protect Madoka and the Sisterhood from the forces of Law, if only because he wants to stay in Homura's good graces and screw over the Great Will at the same time.
- Ass Shove: One of the kaekras Satan (Castlevania) is thrown into as part of his hellish "Groundhog Day" Loop involves Mr. Slave shoving him up his ass like the "Paris Hilton incident".
- Batman Gambit: Act Four has Lol Ranger engineer one of these to humiliate Lucifer. They knew Homura was a friend to Rika, so the rogue Puella Magi would refuse to attack three of the members, who are the latter's friends as well. This also extends to Lucifer himself, who doesn't attack them as not only would he make more enemies doing so, but would also lose Homura as a general against the forces of Law. What happens next is that Mara and Xenagos also get humiliated, and a majority of demons were slayed by the Grey Knights chapter led by the God Emperor.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: In a Call-Back to Final Crisis, Batman decides to make a once in a lifetime exception to BOTH of his codes. The act that triggered the decision is similar in scope and atrocity to the one that caused this trope in Final Crisis.
- Big Bad Ensemble: YHVH, Lucifer, and Satan (Castlevania) are major players. YHVH declares war, which is the backdrop of the entire Rebellion, while the other two are trying to take advantage of it for their own gain.
- Big Brother Instinct: Common motivating factor (metaphorically) behind several characters joining the Rebellion faction.
- Big Damn Heroes: Virtuous saves Madoka from Merkabah. A short while later, Commander Shepard and his group ambushed him with Inferno grenades to blind the chariot.
- Big Good: Cosmos, Sereph Lamington, Batman, Virtuous, The Emperor of Man, Philemon, and Lelouch are straight examples. While Kane and David Xanatos are on the same team as the aforementioned seven strategists fighting YHVH, their means to achieve such are more ruthless than the others, and border more on Pragmatic Villainy than anything else.
- Body Horror: Beelzebub fires a stinger into Mastema's chest, and his brood proceeds to tear their way out of Mastema's body. He survives, but he's forced to wear bandages from head to toe and a mask to hide his disfigurements and has picked up a persistent cough. Superman manages to knock his mask off and recoils in disgust upon seeing Mastema's face.
- Call-Back:* This tale also deals with the aftermath of the events of Stars Of Morning.
- Cassandra Truth: See Anti-Villain above. Due to his actions in Stars of Morning, no one believes Lucifer in that regard. He is also completely innocent and is in fact being framed for Overlord Zenon going on a rampage, but no one believes him in that matter either.
- The Chessmaster: Every army except "Agents of Balance" has at least one amidst their roster, turning this arc into a war between these.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- The initial battle between Beerus and YHVH. Beerus figures a simple 'Destroy' will end the threat of YHVH for good. It doesn't: one YHVH head vanishes to be replaced with five, Beerus destroys them, they're replaced with a hundred, Beerus destroys all of them in desperation, they're replaced by countless more stretching into the infinite. YHVH lets out His voice, and down goes the God of Destruction.
- As Kirei and Gilgamesh retreat back to the GUAE Central Base, the latter explains that he had utterly demolished Sofia Lamb and her army off-screen.
- Metatron, while he was time-slowed, has been given a brutal beatdown by Adell's Vulcan Blaze.
- Overlord Zenon has utterly defeated and made quick work of Lucifer and Homura, even biting off one of the former's wings.
- Curb Stomp Cushion:
- Homura fights Lamington in the sky. While she gets a few hits in, the Seraph makes short work of Lucifer's newest general, telling her to retreat unless she wants a bigger humiliation.
- Lucifer states that he and Coyote Starrk have dealt several blows against Tyrant Valvatorez before being utterly defeated by him.
- Darker and Edgier: Understatement. Billed as the darkest story in the Tales and intended to be the Tales counterpart to Final Crisis.
- Death Is Cheap: One of the pantheon's rules regarding character death. This arc is a Deconstruction of it as several characters actually die in the war but brought back via said rule, only to remember the circumstances of their deaths.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Lol Ranger drives Lucifer completely insane with their trolling.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Lucifer gets totally out manuevered by Rika Furude. She sabatoges his chance for glory with a carefully laid out plan cooked up with Lambadelta and Eldrad, sends an assassin in a nearly successful attempt to kill him, and was a mastermind of "Operation Devil May Cry". This also becomes Hilarious In Hind Sight due to the new chapter of Higurashi released in 09/2014 in which through guile Rika outfoxes two evil gods and makes them her playthings.
- The Dreaded:
- The "Agents of Balance", a neutral faction that wants to make sure neither side of Law vs Chaos gets a leg up over the other, consisting of Flynn, the Demi-Fiend, Eldrad, and Archer. Nobody wants to mess with them, particularly after just two of them curbstomped a small army of Magical Girls in a matter of seconds. Have an alliance of common agenda with The Rebellion.
- Aleph even moreso; it's outwardly stated that if he were to get involved in the Rebellion, YHVH would be doomed.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Some characters in the Rebellion faction such as Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, and Doctor Eggman are villains, but YHVH's actions prove to be disgusting even to their standards.
- False Reassurance: Kirei being the god of this aside, he claims that he, alongside Gilgamesh, are going to target Madoka. This manages to get Shiro, Rin, and Saber in tears. What the three don't know is that Gilgamesh murdered Sofia Lamb, a completely different female.
- Ground Hog Day Loop: Satan (Castlevania) is thrown into an especially vicious one as punishment for his actions.
- Humiliation Conga: This arc is NOT kind to its villains:
- YHVH: Gets his plans thwarted, humiliated at the Court of The Gods, experiences a Rasputinian Death style Vigilante Execution culminating in Batman killing him in the same way he killed Darkseid, forced to admit law, good, chaos, and evil aren't the same and that he's wicked, then gets his title hacked by Etna. Sure, YHVH got on the board with the birth of the GUAL, but at a great cost. His coronation of the group is ruined by Lamington, who proceeded to out YHVH's big secret (as per SMT Apocalypse) in front of the entire pantheon. The attempted retribution completely failed, making YHVH look like an impotent chump along the way. Given that the nastiest way to hurt someone with a big ego is to attack their pride, this is quite the blow. Even worse, YHVH is now at a severe intel disadvantage against the GUAG for Lamington was analyzing the fight with YHVH the whole time and has already prepared countermeasures specifically for when YHVH has to be directly confronted again. To elaborate, Lamington knows two people who hard counter YHVH's unsubtle fighting style.
- Satan (Castlevania): Killed by Vampire Killer then taken prisoner by Homura to teach him a hands-on lesson about "what monkeys actually are". On top of that, she dishes out an "Endless June" style Ironic Hell (some iterations involve Mr. Slave for some reason), much like what she would eventually do to Lady Tremaine.
- Lucifer: Finds that getting Homura on his side was a Pyrrhic Victory; he gets his chance for glory stolen right in front of him, he's nearly assassinated by Tyrant Valvatorez, framed for "Most Dangerous Troll", then driven insane by Lol Ranger. On top of this, The Emperor of Man and the entire Grey Knights chapter of Space Marines (anti demon space marines in which the lesser troops are the equivilant of 1st company veterans of other chapters) Deep Strike into the heart of the GUAC completely by surprise while they're combating a Grim Patron infestation. This leaves all but a few hundred demons dead and the GUAC's morale in absolute shambles. So much for a first outing of Lucifer's new born GUAC. In short, Lucifer got what he wanted but he lost what he had to get it. The GUAC's formation put him on the board, but it ended up only being a consolation prize that got trampled on.
- Irony: LOTS of it is scattered throughout this arc:
- The Big Bad being a creator god by name, yet in behaviour acts more like an especially tyrannical demon (metaphorical one).
- Act 4 having a Chaos Lord's life going south via actions of chaos.
- "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Gabriel Belmont, of all people, does this the demonically possessed Madoka and it works.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Hanyuu unleashes the full extent of her recovered powers as the result of actions under
Moral Event Horizon below, devestating an entire platoon of YHVH's troops. Due to Hanyuu greatly detesting violence, this also counts as Bat Man Grabs A Gun. Her previous involvement was limited to defensive and time magic. - Lighter and Softer: Act 4 is considerably lighter in tone than the other chapters, being a hybrid Looney Tunes and South Park style comedy.
- Light Is Not Good: Pretty much said outright by Sailor Mercury after she scans a few of the angels. What she gets back actually leaves her shaken: opposed to the light from someone like Cosmos or Usagi, which is warm, comforting and protective, the light of the angels is an affront to light itself, like looking into a cold, endless pit.
- Mama Bear: Common motivating factor (metaphorically) behind several characters joining the Rebellion faction.
- Manipulative Bastard: Deconstructed. See Cassandra Truth above.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": Light hearted example. The Sisterhood gives a collective one during Flonne's combat exam after Flonne reveals the full extent of her Overload Skill's power via the dreaded "Dangerous Revival Fabricated Settings" combo.
- Mêlée à Trois: More like a war between five armies. Most poignant in the "Fog of War" chapters in which 8 armies are all fighting against each other all at once.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Sayaka informs that Naoki that they're fighting Satan, the Demi-fiend, surprised that Satan is at the Sisterhood's front doorstep, tells Flynn to summon his strongest demons that Satan could use Mudo on them. The shocked look on his face shows that he's taking the fight more seriously and they need to defeat YHVH's servant fast before many are killed.
- The Omniscient: The short hand of how Lamington's Overload Skill, "Evangel Purity" works. Both the combat and non combat functions get extensively used throughout the first two acts to undermine the Regime.
- Papa Wolf: Common motivating factor (metaphorically) behind several characters joining the Rebellion faction.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech AND Shut Up, Hannibal!: Act two has a massive one directed at YHVH.
- Running Gag: Variations of jokes regarding Grim Patrons appear in every act. It goes to the point where merely saying "A fight? Count me in" automatically causes entire mobs of Grim Patrons to bum rush a spot.
- Spanner in the Works: The Usurper's schemes would've succeeded in their corruption of Madoka if Homura and Gabriel Belmont hadn't interfered.
- Story-Breaker Power: The first two acts are basically what happens should Lamington's Overload Skill gets used to its absolute fullest potential. Despite the Regime's many attempts at surprises either failed or only breifly gained an advantage. For instance, Lamington sensed Homura's magical energy coming and thus was prepared for Regime Superman's attempt at infiltration to fail.
- Unintentional Back Up Plan: While Tyrant Valvatorez's assassination attempt of Lucifer, which was a part of Rika's plan to humiliate the Demon Lord, nearly succeeded, Zenon's rampage weakened Lucifer even further, thus enabling the Lol Rangers to humiliate the Demon Lord with little trouble.
- Villain Decay: In Stars of Morning, Lucifer and YHVH were introduced as nearly unstoppable: Lucifer manipulating Homura with ease, leading to the theft of Madoka's powers, and YHVH's top goon Metatron dealing Cosmos, Superman and Flonne a Curb-Stomp Battle, needing the intervention of Naoki Kashima, Flynn, Sanguinius, and Vulkan to turn the tide. Cosmos realizes that the GUAG will need to get stronger for the coming war, and when the Rebellion finally breaks out, the fruits of the GUAG's labors are clear as they fight the forces of Law and Chaos on much more even footing.
- Villainous Rescue: Beelzebub comes to Madoka's rescue as she's attempting to give herself over to YHVH's forces in order to stop the war.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Starrk threatens Rika with this after she makes her final warning to Lucifer upon revealing herself as the one (mainly) behind his Humiliation Conga, stating that if she goes through with it if Lucifer doesn't do something to directly affect her and her friends, he will come after her of his own free will and he won't be his usual self.
