Vanguard

The Vanguard is a multiverse-wide military force originating in the First Timeline, founded in part by Zach Praktum and his allies after it was revealed to the general public of Earth that magic is real.

Summary
The Vanguard has technically been active since time immemorial, but was officially formed as a group after an outbreak of a magical virus began spreading to normal humans and the magical community was forced to reveal itself to the world. Its primary function is to maintain peace and keep the magical community restricted so that the world doesn't end overnight because some inexperienced kid and his friend decided to try to use telekinesis to get to the center of the earth.

After the virus was dealt with and the creature at its source was found and defeated, Zach and his team gathered the leaders of the nearby magical species (any that were intelligent enough to participate and understand, anyway). The leaders spend days arguing over how to govern the multiverse now that mortals knew of magic, until Zach and Michael presented the idea for the Vanguard. As soon as the present delegates came to an agreement, the Vanguard Act was put in place.

The organization's next major mission would come in the form of protecting the multiverse from the battle between Azrael, Kaira, Satanael, and their respective hosts as long as they could, despite knowing it was futile. They did miraculously well, but were consumed by the deterioration, just like most of the multiverse. After everything was restored, the Vanguard went back to business as usual, albeit without one of its founders.

When Zach returned, he found that the organization had become corrupt, and he had to spend most of his time fixing what had went wrong. Following his and Michael's disappearance, Zach's girlfriend Madison took control of the organization alongside Nexus, the reformed Dark Lord and Zach's grandfather.

While in this timeline, Zach made the members of DxD unofficial members of the Vanguard, under the name DxD Faction. Depending on their rank within DxD, they have the same privileges as a corresponding Vanguard member.

Trivia

 * The ranking system of the Vanguard is similar to the Brave Saints in that it's based off a deck of cards.
 * Leaders are Jokers, next down are Aces, then Kings, then Queens, then Jacks, then 10s, and so on. The lowest rank is 2.
 * Issei is the lowest-ranking member of the DxD faction, as the only 6. This was not done for any particular reason other than because Zach finds Issei's hatred of his status amusing.
 * There is no included explanation of how the Vanguard operates or their special privileges because I haven't worked that part out yet. When I figure that out, I'll put it here.
 * Nexus is only an Ace because of his knowledge of Sacred Gears- or, as the First Timeline calls them, Sacred Artifacts.
 * The First Timeline is called that because it is the original timeline, from which all the rest were created. Think of it as the trunk of the tree.
 * There isn't a Former Members section because there are no living former members. The only ex-Vanguard operatives are the ones that corrupted the organization, and they were killed.
 * The reason nobody leaves is because the Vanguard has amazing benefits and has a starting salary of $200,000 a year. Even a mere 2 is pampered as hell.