Chapter VI - Asunder

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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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"Then you're in for some hectic first few weeks, come capitulation," noted Gallows, "but you won't get far if the rightful reps and heads of state kick folks like Belial off the curb."

Archie nodded and sighed. "Best not fan the flames, then. Matriel's presence isn't entirely pointless, however - if things turn out to be less than civil, we may still need one final bargaining chip."

Gallows nodded slowly. "There ya go: flood the central forge, if you've got no choice and Belial ends up being less reasonable than I thought. The CO2 alarms will be tripped, the auxiliary plants'll cut themselves off and vent themselves to keep the local air clean. They'll finish their current production run, but they'll lose Belial's own matrices, all his master molds, all his prototypes. You fuck up their later runs, but nobody dies."

He pulled out the same pistol from previously, plus one of his own. "For now - let's get acquainted, hm? The sooner we finish this, the sooner the Squeakies can leave the Pit."

The gunslinging Sammaelite guided the group past the secretary's desk, into a seemingly mundane-looking executive office. In her more active years on the beat, Crystal would've seen two or three examples of this before: a little more luxury than a supervisor's office, but just barely. Baywindows looked out at the Eastern half of the circular complex, the three remaining walls covered in the sort of dark wooden panelling that tended to be a relic of old factory offices. Belial's desk might've been luxurious eons ago, but it looked as though the Pit's lurid sunlight had bleached a previously rich sheen of cherry wood varnish right off. Flecks of wood and varnish missed in a few places, as though someone had attempted to jab the desk with a pencil, scissors or a knife. Another door waited along the right-side wall, kept slightly ajar. Steam escaped from it, along with the sound of rushing water.

"Be right with you," said a low and coarse voice, something to the casual tone it affected reminding Archie of Melmoth. "Say what you will about Infernalists and their demands; any quality work needs time. Work needs time, and time, ideally, isn't squandered."

They'd hear the snipping sounds of something more heavy-duty than nail clippers, perhaps a close cousin of the sort of clippers anthros used for their claws. "If you spend enough time dealing with my kind, you realize the successful ones manage time effectively. Get lost in the heady rush of immortality, let the centuries pass you by - and you stagnate. I'll say this about mortals and the rebels - you don't stagnate. You've got a plan. That's admirable."

Eustace ambled towards what looked like a cocktail bar, off to the side, and fingered a few labels. "I imagine time management makes room for gloating?"

Belial chuckled, the sound low and reserved. "Oh, I'm not gloating, mister Coombs. I'm just cleaning up after work. My forge is the hottest, and I don't like to meet potential associates while smelling of sweat and Brimstone. The Goat preens; I just make sure I'm not especially revolting. Help yourselves to the bar, I'll be out in a few moments."

Bob glanced about. "I thought you'd be bigger.
- Oh, size manipulation's just a handy tool to use, for certain pieces. There's a few local structural elements I don't trust my workers with, and dome-wide steel trusses designed to support their living habitat's concrete cap need to meet my exact specifications. Welding smaller sections together would weaken each piece's structural integrity, so I grow myself up. If I can hammer and forge an entire arch together while I'm eighteen feet tall, then I'm sure it'll hold.
- Handy," absently noted Bob, which elicited an equally absent grunt from Belial.

Finally, the door creaked as it was opened, and in stepped a swarthy-looking, yellow-skinned Orc, red-orange eyes slightly lambent with latent power, two short tusks poking out from beneath his lower lip. He looked to be in the low two hundreds, with a rounded abdomen and solidly defined forearms and biceps, with thick trapezius muscles indicative of long hours spent hunched over. The rim of a wife-beater peaked out from underneath a clean, if slightly rumpled shirt, paired with slacks and patent shoes. A steel-ringed wristwatch waited on his left wrist, with a few rings occupying his right hand's fingers, the likes of which Crystal would've found on union bosses countrywide.

Archie grunted in thought. "After watching Ephesian's grooming routines eclipse even mine under the Goat's influence, this sort of négligé attitude would be a decent means of instilling a false sense of trust... Unfortunately for you, we've met Quint."

Belial's reaction was strangely unsurprised, as he headed towards his desk, gripped his chair's backrest and learned slightly forwards. "Ah," he said, to the tone of someone who was sedately taking in a new piece of information. He then nodded.

"Thomas Quint was the product of different times. Opportunities have changed for all of us - and I understand you have a hunch concerning a certain Jonathan Belliard..."

* * *

Tom grunted as he stood up. "It's alright," he said, "you're just lucky I don't need a minimal quantity of blood to survive, Alana."

He narrowed his eyes, his skin flushing as he intentionally raised his own core temperature and sent his immune system to the forefront. A few more drops of blood reached the floor of Sophia's living room, but he'd already hurried back to the bathroom, where he sent Sophia an apologetic glance. "Sorry - vampire problems," he said, adding a contrite smile. "Alana's okay, she mostly needed a pick-me-up. I'll just, uh, steal some gauze and some tape - make sure fibrin sets up quickly enough..."

Infection wasn't much of a concern for the incubus, as he had total control over Quint's body. What mattered was stemming the flow of blood. Alana might look like she'd have some sense more than literally poured into her, courtesy of Aislinn, but she'd still have tasted his own potent vintage. In his capacity as a warlock, Tom knew he had better tend to his wounds: blood isn't just life, it also is power.

* * *

Naberius lifted a hand to temper Amduscias. "There is no need for us to rush things. Furthermore, we have other concerns. Some of our brethren have escaped with Abdiel and Melmoth and others remain unaccounted for. We may have to accept the possibility of search parties being in need, once hostilities cease."

He sighed. "We may also have to accept their demise; their final return to Solomon's Celestial demesne."

Amduscias' gaze hardened. "I'm not acceptin' anyone's death 'till I see their corpses for meself, bruv.
- Neither am I," noted Naberius. "However, some things may change. We always knew there would come a time and candidate that would force our hand, brothers," he said, addressing the other surviving Court members. "We were uplifted out of the Pit's savagery and clad in the raiments of dignitaries, but these are different times. Gifted commoners facing Princes of the Pit? Who has need of Marquessates and Baronies? Does Meris' dignity as our queen require a throne room?"

Agares drained his glass and speared his last bits of food. "We've been running things this way for thousands of years, Naberius, and it's taken us this far. Why change? Did Solomon leave us in charge of when we could just stop responding to titles? 'Cause I don't think he did."

Naberius clicked his tongue. "I am the Steward for the arcane throne of Israel. I am also Christopher Naber, butler and soldier by trade, antiquarian by profession. I can exist outside of my bonds to Meris, Agares. So can you. If peacetime is restored, Hope will need journalists and reporters. Vassago can be a library technician in any such establishment while still keeping with Meris' records.

Leave this penthouse, venture a few floors down, and you will find Tom Magnus' cohort - all of them demonic, all of them possessed of the singular desire to live. Even if living means relegating my aristocracy to a musty and meaningless title printed on a seldom-used card, I consider myself up to the challenge."

He smirked. "Honestly, My Queen," he said, adding a bow and a lifting of his glass to both toast and tease Meris, "I could more than adequately make do with considering your living room as an occasional throne room. Sofas are more comfortable than thrones, at any rate. The rig's facilities could honestly only be used to contain the more volatile of yours or Nereus' experiments. If Titania and Oberon ever complain about your apartments not being suitable for grand receptions, you'll always have the rig and your space-bending abilities."

* * *

The Broker hugged the Throne of Fire for the second time, a trailing groan of wordless tenderness being his only output. From her position, Abdiel would have a few seconds to notice that something about Melmoth's wings was off. The fact that they'd grown bigger wouldn't be surprising, he'd already displayed abilities involving independent flight, when he'd helped her fight off Envy's animal thralls. What was new, however, was a set of deeper cracks that had formed in his right wing's membrane. He shifted his weight slightly, his now visible and corporeal wings lightly bumping into the bedframe.

A small chunk of stonelike skin fell off at that impact, revealing glistening gray flesh as well as a long black spindle. A quill, not unlike the sort that young birds grew, to safely encase their feathers as they developed.

Letting her go, Melmoth tsked lightly. "While I've gotcha, though; I gotta ask - do a Throne's wings ever itch or molt? I know you choose if you want wings or tentacles or tendrils of light or, well, whatever; but my wings have been itching like crazy for the past few days. Mundane stuff doesn't do jack squat, and I've tried everything. I can't reach all the spots on my own, and Heathcliff's getting tired of washing his hands after slathering 'em in Vaseline or calamine lotion."

* * *

Nami would feel the demon lightly bristle against her touch, his teeth clenching in an equally quiet hiss. He relaxed a few seconds later, however, even if tension didn't quite leave the set of his jaw or the lines underneath his eyes. Allocer's latent humanity wouldn't have been as obvious before, somehow - as if Pride Knights like Paimon were such products of their own Ego that their features retained a certain animal simplicity. Allocer's brow was as legible as could be, however, as he repressed his worries and braced against what had to be incoming pain.

There it was, both right underneath her hand and somewhere more intrinsic than the Knight Commander's mere flesh and bones: the heart-center, almost exactly where his physical heart would be. Tracing the node's outer perimeter, she'd sense just what Allocer had spoken of, like a curve or bow in the flow of energy from his heart to his throat, and from the heart to his gut and his pelvis. She'd also sense how her own flow of energy was straight, her strong connections to the mortal plane's ley lines descending from her crown and rooting her in place, anchoring her sense of Self. Hers were perfectly spaced out and undulated with the ebb and flow of life. Allocer's heart-center felt as though someone had pinched it out of alignment long before his emergence out of the Black Goat's own festering inner life. Instead of springing forth from the root and filling him up, power seemed to well from his heart - from himself, in a perfect representation of arcane Egotism - and sustained his other nodes.

As the Throne of Technology, Nami would soon feel the initially spiritual assessment that imposed itself turn to a more metaphorical one: Allocer's heart-center wasn't too dissimilar from an over-volted capacitor in that it still performed its job adequately, but fed an excess of current throughout the rest of the system. If he'd been a machine, one of those now-living things she could sense whose life continued even if disassembled, the required fix would've been easy. Unsolder the capacitor, replace it, test the circuit with a voltmeter. If everything checks out, you're done.

Ah, but chakras and a mage's points of circulation are pesky in that they can't be removed - not without killing the living thing they fuel. Allocer wasn't hers to fix; he'd merely asked her to tweak him. Lower the voltage of his bruised Ego, starve the Throat and Crown just so - and he'd have energy enough to speak, but none to spare towards more aggressive pursuits.

One of the attending demons sniffed. "You sure about this? You could just sign a few forms, wait a few weeks, and maybe-
- We don't have weeks," testily replied the suit-clad demon. "Hope doesn't have that long to last, if nothing changes!"

He met eyes with Nami. "Do it," he said. "I trust you."

Ironically, Nami would sense how Allocer's lowering of his defenses partly accomplished what he'd asked her to do. She'd sense his heart-center slightly diminish in size, turn from an almost unbearably warm source of heat in her palm to a merely uncomfortable one.
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Crystal nodded. "We do. Our hunch is that you reached some sort of deal with Jonathan Belliard that's like possession, but it's not... You're doing so in order to set up a business similar to the one he ran in Europe," she commented.

Matriel sent Belial a level gaze. "Indeed. As mentioned before, the type of possession doesn't share much in common with the Goat's efforts with Ephesian's body. I can only surmise you came to a mutual, yet nearly mundane agreement with Belliard in order to survive the conflict and be able to integrate easily enough with the mortals. However, this is only an educated guess."

Both the Throne and the werewolf gave him a look, wondering how forthcoming he would be with them.

***

Sensing that the vampiress had shed all of her rage, Aislinn released her from the arcane bonds. Alana slumped briefly and meekly found her way over to an empty spot on a couch. Obviously, her previous behavior still bothered her.

Aislinn sighed. "Relax, Alana, I know you were pushed into a corner. The incursions have been hard on everybody, you and Arthur included. That's one of the reasons we came to rescue you. He needs you, as much as you need him."

The redhead bit nervously at her bottom lip. "I assume he turned the majority of the survivors?" she tentatively asked.

The young Archmage nodded. "He did, but Lucian currently has them in an eternal loop, for the time being. It's just to give us time to get to you, so you can reach through to him. You're the only one who can pull him back from the brink."

***

Meris scoffed. "Neither of them strike me as particularly picky, but I can always spruce the place up for them, if need be. On the matter of fulfilling multiple roles outside of our destined ones, I may eventually take up some other profession other than Queen or an assassin."

Aspasia smiled at the thought. "Would you be a professor of magic or something?" she asked.

"Potentially, yes," she mused with a certain wryness to her expression. "I'm sure I'll still need to defeat villains of various sorts, but I hope my life will be at least somewhat simpler, more grounded. Being a vagabond for centuries is tiring."

Hanako nodded in agreement. "You'll have certainly earned it, Meris. You've come a long way since Matriel and I rescued you out in the middle of the ocean, after you escaped Dalarath."

***

Abdiel smiled with amusement. "My wings do molt from time to time. However with the eyes, those parts of the wings are especially irritated," she explained, then shivering with annoyance as she recollected the last time it had occurred.

As Melmoth released her, she got a good look at his larger than before wings and noticed their offness. Inquisitive, she gracefully slipped behind him and gingerly touched the new, dark quill. "Mel, I think I might know why your wings seem so irritated lately...I think you're starting to grow feathers on them."

The Throne sent him a sympathetic look. "I could apply some heat to them, It might relieve the irritation but not dry out the skin. Would you like me to do so?"

***

Allocer's tensions initially caused the hybrid to momentarily tense before she breathed out her nervousness, refocusing her intentions. She lightly nodded as he revealed his trust of her, showing that she understood.

Her hand moved from his abdomen to his chest and lightly rested there as she felt the source of his Pride, his own light that fueled his being. While he certainly wasn't a piece of machinery to be deconstructed and remade to work more efficiently, she was reminded of a dimmer on a light switch. She felt his sense of Self be distorted by the misplacement of power, A more zealous and determined angel might have used this moment of vulnerability to cause the demon deep-seated suffering, but she did her best to avoid that.

All of his spiritual connections would remain in contact with his Heart center, but the degree of radiance would be ease down to a manageable level, in order for him to still talk and move without the aggression so aligned with Pride. His lowered heat was adjusted in such a way that it felt comfortably warm underneath her palm, an glowing ember that felt oddly sated in contrast to what he normally felt. His trust in her had paid off, even through the shift in power would still likely be painful to his mind.
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Belial couldn't quite repress a smile. He headed back the same way he'd come, now rounding his desk to stop close to Eustace. "I was under the impression you were more of the type to prefer wine, mister Coombs," he absently noted. "Even before Belliard, I tended to fall in for harder stuff, myself. Scotch, for instance, or whiskey..."

He pivoted a square bottle and its rectangular glass stopper, the custom decanter leaving no clue as to the vintage he'd selected. Selecting a glass, Belial lifted the stopper to his nose and discreetly sniffed it. "Hm," he grunted appreciatively, "Scotland, 1756. A great year for whiskey..."

Returning to the object of their conversation, he used a pair of bar tongs to select a few ice cubes and plink them in a wide tumbler. "You're half-right, actually. My business is too deeply entrenched in the other Vices' aims for this war to allow me to possess someone full-time. If I took to John's flesh day in and day out, someone like Quint might try and seize that as an offered opportunity. Production quotas would dip, my workers would suffer for it... It'd be bad for business. It's part of the reason why I didn't make much of a fuss, once I realized what the incubus had done to Quint's body. Having a permanent fixture in the mortal plane sounds like a great idea - if you have no attachments here."

He then poured himself a measure of the amber liquid. "As you can see for yourselves, I'm attached. If I were a subaltern like Melmoth, I could relocate my functions to the mortal plane altogether and compensate accordingly. I'm not, however. If I had a GDP all my own, it would dwarf seven Saudi Arabias combined - all because paranoia is an essential function in most Vices. They're afraid of you, so they need guns, swords, spears, armor and more."

Archie followed along. "But none of this allows you to tap into the mortal plane's arms market, which is what you seek.
- If someone has to go around imbuing bullets with Hellfire, it might as well be someone who's pragmatic about it," shrugged the Orcs' creator. "Unlike someone else I could name, who sees the arms race as some twisted means of earning their penance."

Belial took a sip and clicked his tongue. "So if I can't leave, then who does? Moreover, why don't I take to America while leaving someone else in charge of my administration?"

Behind the group, the door they'd entered creaked open. "I think you've all sussed it out a while ago," said Belliard's voice, "you just didn't think it was plausible..."

As he stepped past them, Belial poured a sedate measure in a second tumbler and offered it to the pig's manifested soul. As he did, his own features shifted. A few seconds later, two Belliards stood next to one another, one in the rumpled tie and vest that was theirs in the Krieger Hotel, the other in Belial's partially buttoned shirt and rolled-up sleeves.

The first pig shrugged. "Me, him - it's all the same. He's my twin, or the closest thing to that one of the Fallen can inherit. If I'm going to be John, you might as well call him Jimmy. I'm the one with the forging skills, he's the one with the gift of gab. We learned from one another over time, to the point where what he says or does, I eventually learn about. I'm the one with the summoning history and I picked Belliard out of the litter, so you'll be dealing with the genuine article, up there," he said, pointing.

He focused on Crystal. "He handled things with the Commission up until the collapse, then I took over. We use normal pauses to switch and we don't overtax the body. As for Belliard proper, Jimmy's been driving him since the cradle, for the last several decades. We took a page from Meris' own Naberius, which is why you never noticed anything overt. For now, the body's napping right where you left it. Assuming Jimmy or myself return to it within one of your hours, mister Coombs' junior sommelier should be left thinking the old man needed to conk out for a bit, after weeks spent holed up in the pub."

Belial glanced at Jimmy. "We never decided on who would get to spend the first official night up there...
- You do the honors, mate," replied Beliard, "I've had decades to wear out those hips, and you've got an accent to work on. I say it's time you let me in on your spreadsheets - plus the executive bedroom."

The two pigs exchanged a strangely cordial smile and clinked glasses.

Coombs nodded. "It does explain the lack of usual signifiers. Jonathan Belliard is a stillborn, a body that never housed a mortal soul."

Both anthro pigs took a side of the desk, Belial sniffing lightly. "That's the Goat's main failing, honestly. His needing to corrupt a body to better express his will, I mean. Corporeal forms are basically hardware for anyone between here and Heaven. Why corrupt a good set of tools, when using them adequately speaks volumes? I'm sure the man himself told you exactly that at least once, and then proceeded to sling portals to the Pit and a few dozen fireballs left and right. I don't envy Ephesian's family, honestly.
- I'm sure you don't," sardonically replied Archie, which made Belial give him a pointed glance.

"I don't, mister Holden, because the Black Goat squanders a noble medium as well as a source of profit. You've probably been told before by now, but I don't need to control individuals unless they happen to be problematic. A customer base comes with a few pre-requisites; a working sense of empathy included."

The Clank scoffed. "Really, good sir? Am I to believe you will exercise restraint, as an arms manufacturer? Might I interest you in a few Spanish castles, while we're at it?"

Belial scoffed right back. "You're mistaking empathy for care, mister Holden. I care that there's Infernalists up there with a need for an offer and an unfortunately muddled play-space, courtesy of the war. With me up-top, you'll find much less Faustian would-bes chomping at the bit for a chance to possess any Johnny-come-latelies - and a whole lot less of the Goat. I've never dealt in planar assaults directly, this kind of corruption simply isn't good for business."

He paused. "You've got a monster of sheer Egotism to defeat. In comparison, I'm the devil you know. I'll enthrall and corrupt whomever I choose, but I'll have too much resting on the back of your civilization to be able to afford grandstanding like Pride does. Considering, I'd like to toss in a peace offering."

Another pause as he drained his glass. "Let me through. I'll unblock funds for the city's reconstruction and smooth things over with my new mortal associates in the Commission. I'll finish my current dockets on the Princes' behalf and then start taking orders from your more stable Infernalists, as vetted by Otto Geier and his associates. Cash only, no etheric transactions required, for the first decade of my settling in Hope."

The pig focused on Lowell one last time. "If anything I do shows up as being anything other than above-board, you'll find me collaborative to a fault. After these ten years, I'll slowly start accepting payments the old-fashioned way. By that point in time, your department's budget should have naturally been expanded to include a few hundred or so guns of mine. You'll have resources enough to state your case as a legal representative, and I'll have reach enough to start accruing power and resources."

Nergal groused. "The same song and dance as with the Biggs clan, I see...
- Why not?" shrugged Belial. "Suspicion can give way to respect, and I think I have a foot in that door, judging by how well things turned out, during my brief tenure in Hope..."

* * *

"We heard him on the way here, but we didn't see him," added Tom, as he stood to the side of the doorway to Meris' bathroom. He tried to keep a straight and open line to the living room, so that Sophia and Ciaran would still feel included. The dryad might have been pinned in the bathtub for now, she still had every right to contribute to the discussion.

"Considering his abilities, he could be anywhere, broadcasting his voice in the tunnels while huddled elsewhere," he said. "I doubt he'll step forward for much of anything. With the novices either turned or drained, his only other objective is the Nexus. Lucian is preventing him from casting himself directly underneath the Tree's roots, too."

That made Albert click his tongue. "Speaking of, if Arthur was a last-line sort of defense, what's stopping him from just squatting in the branches? I mean, it is a preternaturally-aged oak, we're talking about. There's more than a few branches that could hold his weight.
- Sophia would know," replied Tom. "Or at least, I think she'd know. I'm not a dryad, so..."

He shrugged, more or less passing Doctor Dickens' suggestion to the dryad with a glance.

* * *

Naberius smirked. "I must say, counting one of Hope's Professors Emeriti among my circle of friends would be something worth liberally sprinkling into any good conversation."

That made Three smile. "How about it, Meris? After fighting Squids, dead gods, demons and traitorous angels, how would you feel about going up against the most nefarious villain of them all?"

Bucky frowned. "I don't know about you, Aidan, but I'm gettin' a little sick of schemers messing with us..."

Drake's grin widened at that. "Postgrad deadlines don't scheme, Bucky. They're as straightforward as can be. Just ask my sister."

Agares shrugged. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure the local Postgrad circuit's got bigger fish to fry than whatever Masters' memoir or Doctorate they might never get to deposit. 
- No kidding," agreed Drake. "It'll be at least a year before the local campus reopens, and that's if we won tomorrow. Sarah's lost her semester, half of her professors died and the other half is either locked in here with us or out there in the enclave - if they didn't just scarper at the first sign of trouble and went out-of-State."

Amduscias shrugged at Three. "I'd rather look at it as bein' a new set of opportunities, meself. Job market's going to be wide open for a long while, after all this, and we'll need some semblance of normalcy a lot faster than we'll need traditional credentials. I'd say savin' the world counts for a Postgrad chair, just like I'd say keepin' the peace right now would stack up to enough commendations for Rhadamantus to get fast-tracked to the Judiciary track."

Bucky scoffed. "All of Biggs Junior's hand-shakin' and document-forging for nothing, then... Not that Randolph would complain, I think. The book might get rewritten, but at least he'll get to do things by it."

* * *

Abdiel's news were difficult to swallow, Melmoth needing a few seconds to process her question. "I, uh, I - guess so?" he replied, blinking as his mind reeled with the implications that followed. He wasn't usually one to blanch, but his limestone-textured skin lost about half a shade as he sat down on the bed's corner.

"We shoulda stayed in bed," he whined. "If Uriel's crowd ever notices, I'm done for! If anyone back in Greed notices too, I might as well pack my bags and find myself some Hindu ascetic to possess for a few decades! A feathered demon... We both know it doesn't mean much, but for these two? It means a lot!"

* * *

His body still reacted as he'd warned it would, in that Nami would suddenly see Allocer's neck tendons grow taut, even as a formless, if loud groan escaped him. His right hand seemed to especially be trying to push against his wrist restraints, probably to clutch at his chest or neck. The glow she'd seen at the back of his throat briefly flared up and receded again, Allocer briefly gagging on a glob of Hellfire that had gone down the wrong hole. Eventually, faintly glowing tear streaks descended from the corners of his eyes, and he slowly relaxed - now looking as though he had trouble focusing on Nami and the others.

"Shit," muttered one of the bodyguards, "I guess what they say about Hope's Pride contingent is true. Guy's got balls, if he lets a Neph tweak him like that..."

His partner looked to want to add something in assent, but Allocer turned his now-heavy eyes towards them. "Enough... talk," he said, his voice slurred. "Let's - Let's go..."

With Amazo and Lucifer in tow, they headed back out the front door and embarked the grungier and slightly Gothic-looking cousin of an old prisoner-transfer panel van, the black side panels looking like someone had crudely hammered them into shape out of soot-covered steel. The transfer demons looked like they'd expected Allocer to conk out during the trip, but Nami wouldn't miss how the disabled Knight's head kept trying to loll towards the side windows, eyes rolling towards streetlights or other brief sights of displaced mundane normalcy. His breathing was heavy and faintly glowing spittle landed on his jacket's lapels as he faintly drooled.

In the meantime, the sights that kept Allocer stimulated brought anxiety to the Lightbringer, who kept his hands joined together below his knees. "What if he says I don't belong here?" he asked Nami. "What if the plan doesn't work?"

Out in front, the van driver responded with a chuckle. "Easy there, guy. Ahriman's always been polite with guys claimin' they're You-Know-Who; always with that half-doddering, half-wise smile. I'm sorry, sir, but you aren't quite who you claim to be, I'm afraid... You'll just be another one of 'em in a short while."

They climbed the hill up to the palace, only for the guards to switch from playful and random banter to concerned looks as they noticed something unusual: Ahriman himself was waiting at the gates, Rhadamantus' Infernal half-twin staying next to him - and looking notably less chipper than usual. Ahriman's blind eyes tracked the van's movement and stopped when it did.

"Is he there, Akaios?" he could be heard asking the Judicator. "Yeah, he is," replied the tentacle-footed demon still clad in monastic browns. "Along with two asshats who ignored procedure for the sake of musty old rules... You'd issued a memo about Lucifer and certain potential defectors, and now we've got both in a single package."

The Fallen Faun shrugged and clicked his cane as he stepped forward. "I smell someone familiar," he said, voice slightly raised. "And yet, somehow new to me..."

His Japanese was slow, the product of someone who'd more studying than actual speaking. "Is this truly you, Nami Urakawa? I sense... Young grace? Has the Creator blessed you somehow?"

Akaios nodded as he allowed Ahriman to use him for further stability. "You didn't read the last briefs from Heaven - she didn't shift 'cause of direct Godly approval. She's a Throne, now, 'cuz a few edited flags. The Big Guy just didn't see it fit to retcon that edit - at least, not yet.
- This is Lucifer's doing, isn't it?"

Akaios didn't respond, instead mutely nodding at the Lightbringer. The Prince of Darkness took a hesitating step forward and went for a sheepish wave, only to realize his old friend was blind.

"Heya, Ahri. S'been a long time..."

Ahriman let out a shaking moan out of pure emotion, hands questing out until he found Lucifer's shoulders, the moan turning into chuckles. "So you didn't abandon us! I knew, Lucifer - I knew you'd come back!
- Yeah, well, I didn't expect to come back empty-handed. All I've got is a couple extra procedures, leads on fragments of a Celestial Engine, legal and extra-legal contacts across a coupla galaxies - and a sweet alien tech-powered trident. All that, and a lot of clues and not enough spaceships and time to parse through them all."

Ahriman didn't look disturbed by that in the least. "Then you aren't empty-handed, my friend. This is much more than what was yours, when you first left. If only the rest of Hell had kept up its end of the bargain..."

The guards had stood at attention until then, one of them then coughing lightly. "Respectfully, sir, we're on the clock. Do we stay and keep the petitioner restrained, or can we leave?"

Ahriman looked like he could somehow see Allocer's state and didn't approve of it. Still, he settled with a pensive grunt. "Take him inside to my chambers. We will discuss out of view of prying eyes. This way, none will be able to object if I release this gentleman from your care.
- Sir, Judge Akaios himself put these rules in place. I don't think it'd be wise to-"

Rhadamantus' brother groaned. "You morons; when's the last time an enemy reached our shores out of the Pit with a tailored suit on?! If you'd revised your engagement procedures, you'd know that anyone who feels like covering their modesty, down here, is either a Prince up for the least subtle undercover stint imaginable, or one of our allies.
- Well, respectfully, he's of Pride, and-"

Akaios scoffed and waved the matter aside. "Just - leave the crib here with us, it'll at least make sure the help is reassured as long as he's in sight. I'll have another car pick it up in a few days."
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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It would be obvious to the two pigs that Crystal was conflicted, due to the history that she had with Belliard and the newly revealed information. There was a certain camaraderie between them since he had helped her and her daughter survive after being cut off from the rest of the city. However, she knew any collaboration would probably backfire in time, even if it was decades down the line. "I mean, you're not wrong, but I at least know Biggs didn't have a double switching places. Respect doesn't necessarily mean everything's peachy in the long term..."

"She raises a good point," agreed Matriel. "Your past reputation precedes you, and your deals always have an eventual fine print. What about all those comatose and possessed orcs? What'll happen to them? What'll happen after you both settle in after a few decades?" he asked frankly.

"I know you did a lot for me and Andrea, but what assurances do I have that something like has real weight with you? That you won't take advantage of that trust we'll give you to forward your years-long ambitions?" the werewolf inquired.

***

"He's nearby to be sure, but I don't know exactly where is," the dryad admitted. Having already left the bathroom area, Sophia glanced upwards and felt for the murderous vampire's presence, reaching her consciousness up through the torn branches for his aura.

***

Meris smiled. "I'll certainly consider that as a backup career, once everything settles down and people have need for an Archmage Professor," Meris replied.

"The job will suit you, and I'm sure you'll have yourself a bit of a fan club,"Aspasia chuckled. "To be studying with the legendary Meris of the Orcades, that's not an opportunity that comes along very often."

"I'm not doing any autographs," the selkie groused playfully. "What about you, Aspasia? Any thoughts of career changes?"

"Probably not, no. People will still want food and it'll be a while before The Last Round reopens. Even if it's food lines, Coach and I will be there to help with getting stomachs filled," the fauness responded.

***

"Yes, but you're also forgetting about one thing, Mel; any zealot from either side will have to go through me," Abdiel reminded him, sitting
beside him on the bed. "I'm not about to let anybody hurt you because they're stuck in some narrow-minded view. Your growing feathers doesn't go against Her will; their ignorance and bigotry does."

She sighed and surveyed his wings, gently stretching out the appendage. She let a comfortable warmth radiate from her palm and ran it down the newly developing skin and quill. "You're not the Cherub you were, but you also aren't the one who Fell ages ago. Some might eventually come around, and others won't. That's their problem. Besides, you're no pushover. You can hold your own, and again, I'll be there by your side."

She smiled as she tenderly kneaded the warmth into the flesh to relieve his irritation. "It's not entirely surprising that you're growing feathers. Your original status as a Cherub made you more malleable. After all, the members of that Choir can change into animals or people to protect God. The addition of plumage isn't out of the realm of possibilities."

***

Growing tired of the demons' suspicions, she rolled her eyes. "It shouldn't matter what Vice he belonged to, especially since his intentions are genuine. He's not a double agent," Nami muttered at the green-skinned demons. "He'll be fine with Ahriman."

She rather boldly went back to the van and opted to help him out. She knew he might not be quite all there, but she felt obligated to treat him with more dignity than the two demons had initially given him. She undid the restraints and the mouth guard, helping him up from the wheelchair and out of the vehicle. She didn't know how much strength he'd have in his legs, but she looped one of his arms around her shoulder and supported his weight with her own strength, which might have looked odd given her willowy physique.
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Belliard took a few steps aside, while his demonic counterpart drained his glass and smacked his lips, looking thoughtful. "I can only give you those reassurances Biggs already gave you, Crystal," he said. "My client base will begin legitimately, but I've always paid my bill, real and metaphorical, out of human ambitions. You're guaranteed to find weapons of mine at a crime scene, sometime in the future - and you're guaranteed that I'll deny any direct involvement, which won't be a lie, technically. Like any legitimate businessman, I won't have control over every single point of sale I'll have deployed. Like Biggs, I'll actively participate in city-related activities and work to ingratiate myself with the locals. The one and only difference will be that while the American-Sicilians and their Irish-American Goblin friends cornered the illegal firearms market, I'll have control over supernatural ordnance."

The Smith shrugged. "Just another kingpin in the Commission, just another supplier of payola to the same old struggling officers and technical consultants. Like I said - the devil you know. If you know what to expect out of the weasel, you know what to expect out of me, as awkward as it might initially seem."

He added a smile. "I know it seems daunting, especially now that the Goat's ended a lifetime's worth of perceived normalcy, but I'd rather see it as the seating of a new professional relationship. Ten years of legitimacy, my friend, after which I'll be more than glad to see what you're capable of with a working office."

Nergal rolled his eyes. "You're acting as though she'd welcome the sight of your customers or victims of eventual resellers; gang wars fuelled by Hellfire and Brimstone shards!
- How is that any different than Biggs' offered guns? Is his controlling harbor traffic with Sarvin or curbing narcotrafficker activity by making a killing from it somehow more tolerable?" Belial asked rhetorically. "Weasel Biggs is congenial and amenable, a patron of the arts and a model citizen according to some - and he also enables murderers and thieves. So does Sarvin, so once did Jimmy Winters."

Archie looked a tad conflicted. "As much as I'd like to assume we will rebuild a better world than what the incursions destroyed, human inclinations have been and always will be the same. The living descendants of incarnated Evils seeking living arrangements and gainful employment will in no way alter human nature - peacetime will never be entirely peaceful. This applies regardless of Belial's involvement. All legal instances like myself or Crystal can home to do is curb the least honorable aspects of said nature."

He looked back to Nergal. "You and I both like firearms as objects, Galbraith. They can be veritable objets d'art, but will always primarily be designed in order to snuff out lives. Your avenue might be above-board, legally speaking, but you've as much blood on your hands as Belial. There are no winners, here."

Coombs sent Galbraith a sobering look, and then nodded back at Belial. "And the Orcs?
- I can see to it that those that haven't perished are resupplied with a counterpart," replied the Smith. "As for those that were overtaken by their darker half, all I can do is keep them on-task. Once administration is sufficiently re-established, I can have one of them petition for recognition by the Vienna Council."

* * *

Sophia wouldn't sense anything above them. What she'd sense, however, was that both the increased Celestial presence in the park and Lucian's spatial distortion lenghtened shadows in the park's opposite end, creating wide pools where the roots of smaller trees simply disappeared. Simply put, Arthur had more than enough options, when it came to directing his horde while staying out of sight. They'd need a Karthian or a Void Weaver to get a better fix on him, or would have to test their luck in the park's northwestern end...

In the same direction, new noises distantly rose and grew closer. Voices called out and strangely dopplered between distinct points of origin too quickly for natural movement to be involved, and a few cackles could be heard. Hearing this, Tom briefly excused himself and hurried across Sophia's dining room and kitchen, opening the door to her back yard to try and glance at the clamor's source from some point above her fence.

"I think these are some of Calhoun and Horatio's guys!" he shot back, for the others to hear. "I think they've put a search party together!"

One of Grimley's fellow circus acts had heard him, shouting back "Party's the right word for it!" on a deliriously gleeful tone.

Still, Calhoun's pointy-eared and bald-headed triggermen acted like the more methodical ones in the group, leading to the odd sight of olden-time drum-magazine Tommy guns being used to fire short bursts at any large pool of shadow, the suit-clad vamps pausing to listen for a response and shouting back "Clear!" after a few seconds. Tom stayed in place and watched the proceedings unfold for a few seconds, only to yelp at an unexpected sight: one of the bursts resulted in the triggerman walking off, as usual. However, as soon as his back was turned, an ashen blur shot out of the black, straight line of a maple tree's shadow, launching the goon up into the air with a loud snarl. The triggerman was torn apart in the same gesture, the two halves falling back down even as fat splashes of cold, previously-stored blood rained down. Arthur's blur arced with his accumulated momentum, and fell soundlessly in the shade of a dying rose bush, disappearing in its gloom.

His mind racing, Tom looked back inside. "AISLINN!" he called. "I NEED YOUR HELP!"

* * *

"I think I'll take a vacation, personally," chimed in Drake. "I'll time it so it isn't inconvenient during the reconstruction efforts, obviously, but I think us do-gooders will be seriously due for some respective Me Time."

"I don't blame ya," added Amduscias with a sympathetic roll of his eyes. "I want my four walls, my guitar and my amp, meself. It doesn't have to be in a castle or anywheres," he said, looking back to Meris to reassure her. "We're still a long way from peacetime."

Something made him quirk an eyebrow and vaguely gesture with a few fingers. "Say, Robertson - you should skip by your flat soonish. I think I remember two potentates or somesuch sayin' they'd drop something inestimable on your bed. I wouldn't leave it in the open for too long. Story goes I don't gotta worry none about your husband - even if he's not the singing type - but, still."

The penthouse's phone array discreetly rang a few seconds later, Gubbin excusing himself to go answer it. As expected, they'd only really hear his side of the conversation.

"No, mister Wormsworth, I haven't seen mister Ephesian of late. Is something the matter?"

He paused. "Quarrelsome spirits, is it? Yes, I could see how this would be of concern, only he was infused with an Adjudicator's rights concerning the Damned and the restless dead. If Mister Magnus were available, I could petition for the use of his private line, in order to remind Leonard of his growing docket. As you know, he and Miss McConmara dispatched themselves to Centennial Park..."

Gubbin looked as though the caller were testing his patience, his eyes half-lidded and his countenance gloomier than usual. "I see. In the absence of a qualified spiritualist, I can either entreat a few of my guests to come to your aid, or have miss Robertson notify her husband. How bold would you say this resurgence has been? Most mundane armies have retreated the world over and are now letting the front lines persist as the Celestials' and Infernals' sole province. The number of deaths has greatly diminished in the recent weeks, as the world prepares for its riposte."

One or two seconds or silence, followed by Gubbin trying for the dignified, discrete and soundless relative of a facepalm.

"Yes, sir. I shall relay your concerns. Until the influx is abated, I suggest you raid your own pantry for a can of free-flowing salt. Draw a circle around your desk and a line across your office's threshold."

More silence, which Gubbin filled with silent, if eloquent pleas for the slaughter of certain Pit-borne legal representatives. "If I may, sir," he finally managed, seemingly squeaking in edgewise, "folk magic does have its uses. If nothing else, the more credulous of those spirits will beleive themselves impeded. Now - consider your concerns relayed. You will hear from us shortly. Good day to you."

He hung up before Herbert could add in anything else. Three wiped his mouth and stood up. "Looks like we've got a bodhràn to field-test," he said, looking back to Aspasia. "I wonder why Len's getting more clients now, especially now that fewer people are dying."

Naberius shrugged. "He is a new structure, a newfound amenity in the trials and vissicitudes of the recently deceased. There are no newspapers in the Shadowlands, no Internet one might advertise on. Word-of-mouth rules all in Limbo - a slow, if efficient means of dissemination, when what is disseminated is not some fantastical distortion of the real thing. Mister Ephesian has a lot to live up to, to be frank - or should I say, a lot to unlive to."

* * *

Abdiel's reminders made Melmoth look down, as if lost in thought. "I never really had the chance to do that, y'know," he said. "Shift, I mean. I was made, I palled around with the Lightbringers and I didn't come down here nearly enough for the millions of years that preceded the Fall - and then, I learned. Hard. I'd always hear about the more juvenile types in the Host, sure - those who spent two weeks as Fauns or a few years as kids in a Neanderthal hunter-gatherer community - but I never worked up the stones to try it out. The two or three times I tried, I'd been relying on possession for so long it felt like trying to move an atrophied muscle."

He shrugged, looking not so much troubled by it, and more like this was just a fact he'd accepted long ago. "I can't do what you do; read and re-write my own DNA on the fly, or disperse my physical form while perfectly grounding all the energy that's released. If mortals could do half the stuff you can, this war would've ended before it would've even begun - it would've involved mortal bodies going nuclear, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess," he said, chuckling.

* * *

Luckily for Nami, she wouldn't be the only one shouldering Allocer's weight. Akaios might've looked like Rhadamantus' tubbier, goofier and more self-assertive relative, he still packed a decent amount of strength despite his almost Friar Tuck-worthy appearance. Allocer did what he could to walk on his own, but his feet only managed the occasional half-step and an errant kicking or dragging motion. Ahriman's palace was a blur to the debilitated Knight of the Pit, and Nami wouldn't be given sufficient time to appreciate the ways in which Ahriman had tried to brighten up Lucifer's hypothetical demesne. The open courtyard in the back had been rendered in Medieval illustrations time and time again, with its arrangements of fruit trees, ferns and footpaths, but the interior of the palace had never been elaborated upon by most scholars. You also couldn't count on Milton for an accurate descriptor, either. According to him, Lucifer was trapped in the frozen core of Hell's wastes. This place was anything if frozen, and it was the best of Pandemonium's attempts at depicting sobriety, refinement and responsibility.

Simply put, Ahriman lived in a cathedral served by several wings. The main space consisted of two massive hallways that intersected at their midpoints, glassworks and Gothic friezes carved out of white, aging stone that hadn't been exposed to Brimstone or Hell's winds. This resulted in the sort of dusty, off-white sheen you could've seen in early Romance churches back on Earth, paired with the grandiosity of the later centuries' architectural projects. The space wasn't religious, however. Pews did wait along the rear half of the main hall and an elevated lectern did occupy the same space you would've expected of an altar, but their purpose was likely to allow for the holding of ceremonies or training seminars for more active Sammaelites along the lines of Bob. The glass-stained windows depicted Pandemonium's construction, and the twins to the in-set Cross Way plaques instead depicted the Fall from the perspective of penitent demons. What looked like Gothic slits along the walls actually happened to be a series of intricately carved and painstakingly-imbued crystals, seemingly gifted to the people of Pandemonium by Sammael. The long, twelve-feet long crystal fingers were inset in the walls, six per side, and filled the space with what felt like the realistic simulacrum of daytime in the mortal plane. The stone planters that lined the walls certainly benefited from it, as a number of herbs and essences wafted in the air.

Akaios led them across the open rectory and to a secluded door, which he opened with a key. All the while, Ahriman's attendants spared the group worried glances but kept to their tasks.

"Alright, fella," said Akaios, his tone kept reassuring, "we'll get'cha in a chair in a jiffy. We just have to dodge a few rubberneckers and we're in the clear..."

Ahriman's actual office was as spartan as you could've assumed. Being blind, he had no need for additional light sources or much in the way of decoration. His desk was covered in thick rolls of vellum and connected to an equally small bedroom and washroom, but everything looked to have been set for easy spatial reference, a if Ahriman still needed to keep a mental map of his surroundings. Once Allocer was sat across from the desk, Akaios ducked back outside to fetch more chairs. In the meantime, the Fallen Faun perused his wall-length honeycomb bookcase for a particular scroll.

"Blackstone's Physical Properties of the Radiant Ones," he said, his voice frail. "Yes, this should keep things as painless as possible..."

Bringing it out to his desk, he opened the scroll and set it flat on the surface, apparently reading it thanks to holes that could've passed for mite marks for the uninitiated. Instead of reading the elevations of Braille dots, he essentially followed holes in the fabric. Once satisfied, he edged his way around the desk.

"The Princes," he said, "such poor craftsmen, the lot of them, shaping their thralls out of their own faults, as though this could not conceivably backfire! The mortals' Reiki could have killed you, good sir - I'm surprised you've weathered it as well as you told young Nami you would," he said, hands probing Allocer's neck and chest until he found the node Nami had manipulated.

"You cannot be made to Speak, Hear or Love as our mortal kinsmen do," he said, "following the same road would be madness. This excess of Pride, however, can be rerouted elsewhere, to stabilize your etheric field."

Allocer laboriously managed a few words. "I thought this would involve... stones and crystal wands," he said, almost managing a smirk. Ahriman smirked back, as if he'd seen it. "Not for us, no. Here in Hell as is the case in Heaven, we are energy made manifest, another bandwidth for Matter to take. To the mortals their own ministrations; we have our own..."

Not waiting for Allocer's response, he began unbuttoning the demon's jacket and shirt, pushing back his necktie to have an easier time at accessing his chest. Pausing to assess what looked like a particularly tender area, he slipped inside his washroom and quickly cleaned his hands. He came back with globs of something that smelled almost like lemongrass oil mixed in with some sort of water-based gel, and set to work massaging the same area Nami had manipulated. In essence, instead of simply switching things back to normal, he'd opted for a less traumatic come-down - and one that he seemingly put to good use in trying to coax Allocer's fundamental imbalance into creatively righting itself. Before long, there wasn't a spot between Allocer's neck and chest that didn't smell like lemongrass, the demon's features having progressively relaxed. When he opened his eyes again and lifted his arms, it was obvious he'd returned to normal.

"I feel I should thank you," he said. "I feel better than I've ever did before. The last few weeks have been conflicting, and the last hour's proven to be revelatory," he said. "I'd been afraid I would spend days rehashing that bitterness, that sense of betrayal. That said, if you've rehabilitated me completely, I can assume you know what I'm here for."

Ahriman nodded as he wrung his hands together to have them absorb the rest of the gel. "Retribution," he said. "Vengeance. These are what you seek."

Allocer had the looks of someone who knew where this was headed, and who didn't want to hear it. Still, he didn't pre-emptively oppose the old Faun. "I know you can't give them to me. I'd never ask you to, either. Your men, however, are Hell's lead firearms users outside of the Pit. I had to come to you, I never would've made it to one of your quartermasters."

That seemed to appease Ahriman to a degree, whose spark of wariness dissipated slightly. "There are things which you will be unable to stop," he warned the former administrator, and some forms of penance that will still be required. You've hurt the city you claim to love, Allocer. None of its citizens will welcome you with open arms."

Allocer sighed, apparently out of contrition. "And you know a thing or two about penance, or so my old boss used to tell us..."

The old goat chuckled, no sound leaving him as his shoulders shook gently. "I do, Sir Knight. You, however, are going to learn that there are other lords deserving of your fealty, other principalities deserving of your objective qualities. Hope's City Hall may not be yours, but yours is too singular a mind amongst Pride for it to be wasted centuries-long in a gaol reserved for Gifted evildoers. Justice will be served in the end, but it may still favor you - if you repent."

Allocer shook his head. "I would have done things entirely differently, if I'd known. If I had, I would've claimed office to hold the door for Mayor Doherty and the civilian workforce to return. I would've upheld his policies and tried not to use the enclave as a vague token of progress. Hope's citizens deserve peace, and I should've worked with Holden Hall's forces from the day of my accession to the mortal plane, even if it would've meant resorting to subterfuge to betray my own soldiers."

A glance was offered back at Nami. "I'm of Pride - repentance doesn't come easily. Objectivity is a different question, however. In the face of what I've been shown, the only rational course of action leads to penance.
- You do know that if you strike this match, you will light the fire of Pride's advance," warned Ahriman. "Free your possessed colleagues and you will shed the blood of the Damned. Even assuming that the enclave's low security allows you to overwhelm it, even if the police forces recognize your attempt and rebel against their possessed and demonic colleagues in support, nothing guarantees that the ground you will have regained will remain yours. Pride may yet still hold all, before the end."

Allocer nodded. "I know. This isn't just a question of Pride, though."

Ahriman felt as though he'd been in the exact same position, long ago. "Your feel your honor is at stake. Yours, and that of all the other Fiends who took to Earth to preserve the gift it offers. The gift of civilization. You feel the Goat will destroy that which you have sworn to protect."

* * *

Atop Magnus Tower, the scenery had taken a turn for the decidedly lurid. More concert-grade amplifiers had been set on the helipad, now connected to micrphone tripods fashioned out of driftwood and long bones, fastened together with leather cords. Large drums waited on their massive wooden trestles, accompanied by bone chimes, bodhràn hand drums and their Native American counterparts, with the perimeter of the pad now being lined with painted-on Elder Futhark runes arranged in old and cryptic patterns. A bone dagger waited on its own little ceremonial altar, an athame for a ritual Walpurgis' visiting Warlocks reserved for the last push against the forces of darkness. Helena Nasir and Protis, Speaker for the Akari, stood aside and watched while practitioners covered in war paint muttered under their breath and revised their respective passages. They looked like pre-Roman natives of the colder stretches of Europe, with Scandinavian blondes and blues and Teutonic browns and reds - all of them speaking with a light Texas drawl occasionally lifted up by a bit of the local German. They consulted what looked like multiple copies of the same modern grimoire - almost a musical fakebook with its laminated pages and printed-out diagrams set in nondescript ring binders - and sometimes referred to the only one in their midst who already looked ready.

Nobody had had the chance to catch Otto Geier in the act of dressing normally, yet. He'd mingled in with the mundanes in the lower floors for a few days and several people had accounts of the chiroptean-faced Warlock improving himself as a stay-at-home Math and German teacher, but these hadn't reached those chiefly concerned with the tower's survival. As far as Nasir was concerned, Geier had always sported the same tattered old purple robe, a chestpiece of human bones woven on top of it and accompanied by pauldrons shaped out of two genuine human skulls. Satisfied grins that left him usually left him looking like some ogre out of the Grimm Brothers' tales, but he carried the same stigma as Hope's own practicing warthog. The Dark Arts came with a price, and people like him unsettled non-practitioners and nonbelievers.

Not that Helena was one of them. She remained apart from the group for a few moments longer, watching as Geier approached the skyscraper's ventilation units and gazed out at the city beyond from the relative safety of the fences that surrounded them.

"Is everything unfolded as expecting, Herr Geier?" she asked him, the warlock lightly jumping as he turned around, his wispy goatee flapping in the wind.

"Ah, Fraü Nasir!" he said, smiling. "Good day! I was feeling for the wind, you could say. Testing it for portents. The Fiends' unnatural heat seems to have abated a bit. The weathermen are forecasting a slow downwards slope towards normal springtime values; I'd say this cool breeze is a good omen."

The lilac-skinned human smirked vaguely. "I had no idea black magic came with such a high degree of sensitivity."

Otto shrugged. "I wouldn't call it sensitivity, so much as it's being objective. Pitting Evil against Evil works when the forces are Good are there to direct their spite at a worthy target.
- You're going to curse the demons?"

Otto gestured at the equipment. "Not directly, mind you. Cursing a Fiend is worthless, a better course of action is to support those who oppose them. We're not so much going to curse the demons as we'll temporarily uplift everyone else.
- Shouldn't Celestial magic be used, considering?"

Geier's smile turned a tad darker. "I'd consider Iron Age-level fury and conviction to be as worthy as any state of grace. Even with this, us Warlocks are allowed our reflective moments - and our occasional nods for those powers that dwell in Light."

She glanced past him. "You were paying tribute? Now? I don't see any offerings..."

Otto chuckled. "Water has its tensile properties, fire its release of energy, the Earth has lodestones charged with both meaning and worth. Wind is comparatively more discrete. Trap air and it goes stagnant. Allow it to flow, and it slips between your fingers. Air only speaks if it can reach speeds great enough for it to whistle and, in the grand scheme of things, it rarely honestly screams. I assume you've seen satellite footage of Mars' storms, ja?"

The Queen of the Vanguard nodded in response. Geier smirked. "Cataclysmic dust clouds, charged with red lightning - and yet, the atmospheric pressure is still so low on the Red Planet that all we would ever feel would be a caress and a whisper, even as the sun is blotted out..."

He looked away for an instant. "I know how it sounds - a bat-faced practitioner who sold his soul to a demon that's fortunately aligned with Humanity, daring to pay heed to the world's natural forces. As far as hypocrites go, you'll still find worse off than me."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Crystal grunted contemplatively at the moral ambiguities the pair offered as a means integrating into this post-war scenario.

Matriel picked up the deputy chief's inner conflict and sighed. "There's no easy way to go about this. Every person in the universe has moral ambiguity, whether it is considered legal or not, demon, angel, mortal or other. These ambiguities will be there after the war is over and be just as complicated as they were before."

The werewolf glanced over at the angel, knowing he was right. "You're correct, but that doesn't mean I'm thrilled about the additional trouble it'll cause."

Remembering another loose thread of their journeying here, she asked Jonathan and the Smith, "What's the deal with Quint? When he was alive, he wasn't exactly an Eivor Pálsdóttir fan. I don't exactly remember him using his vacation days for a trip to the Faroe Islands or anywhere in Scandinavia, either."

***

Aislinn came running to his side, but she simultaneously saw the triggerman's corpse hit the ground with a crimson precipitation. "How the fuck are we supposed to catch him? We can sling all the spells we want, but we can't zero in on him and he can move faster than either of us can! He'll tear us in two just like that!" she said.

The tattooist felt someone grip her arm, and she looked back to see Alana. In contrast to Arthur's homicidal demeanor, she seemed particularly sober for one of the Freaks. "You might be better off letting me go out there. I'll at least get his attention. I'm hoping I can talk him down," she said determinedly.

***

"We'll find out soon enough, if Wormsworth's call has anything to do with the increase," Meris mused with pursed lips.

Knowing the mystical and known nature of the drum, Aspasia nodded and frowned. "How should I get back to my apartment? Just walking over there seems like it'd invite trouble by letting bystanders know I had something of value there," she stated.

Hanako took another glance up at the vent she had popped in at and looked the fauness' physique up and down. "You should be able to go through the same way I approached and venture into your apartment from there and be able to return. The space might be a bit snug with a drum in tow, but it's certainly less conspicuous than innocently walking around with it in the hallway."

The Chimera scoffed and then nodded in agreement. She unlatched the panel and gracefully pulled herself up, going on her stomach. Having a general idea of where her quarters were, she followed her nose to come to the vent above the bedroom and quietly dropped down from the ceiling.

***

Abdiel massaged the membrane around the outer edges of the deep cracks and let the heat seep in to the crevices. She scoffed lightly, "Shh, don't let the Creator hear you too early. She's probably already got plans for the mortals to one-up cocky demons and angels and show that they're their equals. It's probably a surprise," she lightly joked.

She inspected the size of the developing area of his wings and shrugged. "I know you're concerned with the feathers being seen, so I could just put a temporary veil in place. It's not a permanent fix, but it'll keep you out of sight of those you're worried about."

***

"He's trying to destroy that and more," Nami responded to Ahriman, brows knitting together with concern. "We received some intel from Meris earlier that she found out while in the Darkhallow. An angel is conspiring with the Chamberlain so that the Earth will become an uninhabitable husk, if the Goat's not defeated and his reign of terror continues to its desired end. I don't know if the Goat's aware of this allegiance or it's just a convenience for those who see God as an unfit Maker and want to redo life as they want it."

She frowned at Allocer. "That resonates with what we found out about the Goat's plans in Washington, DC," she noted. "Even though mortals will hold a grudge against you for a while, you understand the things that make their lives worth living and having. It's not just your honor that's at stake, but a world that's habitable for everyone."

***

The clatter of bone chimes and the distant patter of feet on the roof of Magnus Tower drew a certain angel's attention. The subtle vibrations rung in her keen ears and caused her to look up at the ceiling. Given that she didn't want to let anyone know of her presence, Ariel opened a white portal in the Urakawas' living room and went through it.

Nasir, Geier, and Protis would see a second, human-sized portal open not far from them. She had caught the tail end of his statement and commented, "Better to have a perceived hypocrite than one who doesn't care about humanity at all."

Before them stood a tall woman of African descent, or that was at least her assumed appearance. Her curly hair was cropped short to the scalp, while her unique and intricate headband shimmered slightly in the remaining daylight. She wore a mint green button down shirt and gray linen pants, her feet covered by brown loafers. Her gray eyes shimmered with the notable shine belonging to Heaven's denizens.
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Belliard smirked in the back, while the Smith chuckled - pausing a moment to sit down at his desk. "That's on me, I'm afraid," he said. "I had to strip his memories to keep him functional, and his last failure had left him in a fairly nasty obsessive loop. I used some of the best tools I have to excise them as carefully as I could, but it felt like pulling tumors out of a terminal patient. It was one chunk of hatred after a slice of obsessive-compulsive focus on Celtic and Norse folklore after another and another - and I honestly just had to call it quits, after a variably small eternity spent working on him."

He thoughtfully swished his empty glass for a second, listening to the ice cubes as they clinked and clattered about. "I removed most of what I could reach, but it's obvious that he'd spent years working on this, prior to his death. I don't think Trollabundin qualifies as something he's consciously paid attention to - it didn't crop up too often during my resizing attempts - but it apparently was a stepping stone of sorts, a gateway for the obsessive aspects of his last and greatest plan to take shape. It also marks the last time he made a concerted effort to blend in, just over two years before his death."

Curious, Archie carefully stepped away from Nergal - likely to make it clear to the weaponsmith that he wasn't giving him a clear shot for the large Orc - and tapped a finger on his cane's hilt, casting his gaze about as he formulated his thoughts. "How often have you attempted to corrupt someone like this, in the past?
- I couldn't possibly give you an exact count, mister Holden," negated the demon. "Quint was unique in that he already had a strong imprint in Hope's greater culture. My initial thoughts involved deepening those attachments and seating Quint as more of a tactician, something akin to the role I'll take with Belliard's persona. Unfortunately, most souls can't be extricated in one fell swoop. Thomas Quint was envious, jealous, prideful, arrogant, foolhardy and mendacious - I didn't have too much trouble wearing him out, and I knew he wouldn't be much of a challenge for the locals unless I stepped in."

Archie nodded. "You are unfortunately correct. That said, I'm surprised to find you so articulate. My own research suggested you would be a man of few words."

Belial smiled at that. "I am - when compared to Pride or the other Princes. I like to use the right words for the right things - the right tools for the job. Pride and Wrath can prevaricate for as long as they want, I prefer being straightforward."

Catching the jab, Bob grunted. "Right. You don't prevaricate, you just buy yourself enough time to size up your opponents and your clients. What's your take on us, then?"

The Smith nodded, clearly pleased that someone in the group had thought ahead of their talk of Ethics. "I think you're honest. You came here as yourselves, carrying your own partial knowledge and your preconceptions of my role in the scheme of things, and you made the best of it. You came here expecting a suspender-snapping or apron-wearing brute, something easy to hate. You found me, instead, and you haven't attacked me yet.
- But you also don't feel any guilt, even after Falling."

Belial stopped toying with his ice cubes and gave Bob a level gaze. "Most of the Fallen reached the Pit because of their hubris. I Fell thanks to guilt by willful association. I lowballed Hesediel for weapon and tool molds that weren't mine to use, I upset the balance of power between the Celestial and the would-be Fiends. I knew exactly where I'd end up."

Bob nodded again. "Away from God.
- Try free of God, Bob," replied the Smith. "The supposed Grand Inspector of Black Magic and Witchcraft whined and screamed like a child, while Falling. Gluttony barely noticed and dined on anyone that was unfortunate enough to fall close to its maw, and your incubus friend's own father, Asmodeus, tried raping grief-stricken female Cherubs while their wings burned. Apart from your own kind, I'm the only one who reached this place with a plan in mind. It's a mercantile plan, I'll admit - but an honest one. I don't need to lord it over anyone; all Pride's glory is good for is keeping my workers fed. If mortal society cuts me a better deal, I'll be open to negotiate."

He gestured to Squeaky. "You're even welcome to take his wife and him with you, if you think you can eventually do a better job at making them happy."

* * *

"We can still help you," replied Tom, as he kept tracing the goons' attempts to keep track of the enraged thespian. "I could create a large flare with enough of an oxygen casing for it to burn for close to a full minute at a good ten, maybe eleven thousand lumens. Aislinn could use her telekinesis to angle it above us so most shadow pools dissipate, maybe add more Hellfire or Celestial Light to add more kick to it. If we lower Arthur's options to as close to one shadow pool alone, we'll all have an easier time stopping him. You'll have to warn the others on our cue, so they shield their eyes."

* * *

As expected, Aspasia would find a curious bundle of brown paper on her bed, tied together with both tape and strings, with a number of stamps declaring it to be fragile. The included missive was standard fare from Fae royalty - succinct well-wishes and calls for support in their use of the item - but the case it was carefully ensconced in had to be of modern make. The bodhràn and its drumstick waited in an oiled mahogany shell that had been decorated with friezes of both Celtic and Greek inspiration, the top lid showing a golden seal that carried the artifact's likeness. Undoing two snap-case latches unveiled a plush interior of foam lined with silk, along with the instrument itself - and what had to be the bulkiest clip-on mic and amplifier she would've seen since the late seventies.

Obviously, neither the Celts or ancient Greeks would've known much about audio equipment, but modern users of the drum wouldn't necessarily have the luxury to stand with their backs to a reverberating cliffside or facing the wind. The added weight was likely due to the hardware's extensive arcane shielding. In fact, Aspasia would've caught Coach drooling at the sight of twenty-thousand dollar clip-on mics for acoustic guitars of a similar design. The epitome of Arcane Exclusion technology for the discerning modern Cantor - but still an abhorrent purchase for a lich that paid his family's bills using a local eatery.

* * *

"That'd be better," opined Melmoth. "We've still got the dragons to check in with, and only Tanner and Amaterasu look like the type who'd look at my quills and go for handshakes. I'd settle with just relief, but we'd better avoid another ethical squabble for now."

Relief gave way to pangs of brief discomfort as Abdiel's warmth spread, only for even those pesky tingles to fade away. The Broker couldn't repress a final sigh of relief.

"Fuck you, Tylenol," he groused jokingly, "my girlfriend's better..."

* * *

Allocer could only nod at Nami's astute summation, and looked back at Ahriman. "What'll it be, then? Either you keep me locked up here until my administration starts taking direct orders from Washington, or I nip this in the bud and try my hand at giving those people I wronged something resembling a future."

Ahriman paused, considered these facts for a few moments, and then looked back to Akaios, who'd returned moments prior.

"Do it," said the old Faun. Akaios pulled a piece of chalk out of a fold of his robe and sketched out a door. Pausing to focus, he willed some power through it - and opened a Gate through to Pandemonium's armory. Processing this, and the spartan, halogen light-bathed space beyond, Allocer couldn't keep shock off his face.

"All this time, you've kept Pandemonium's storehouse in Faerie?!
- Nah, that ain't Faerie," replied Akaios. "That's Earth. We keep our armory deep in the rockface, underneath the Order of Saint George's keep. This chamber doesn't connect with the outside world and it doesn't so much as have a ventilation system. They don't know it exists and until you showed up, neither did the Pitspawn, either."

* * *

Otto would've lost any bets regarding his ability to connect the dots quickly; as he'd forgotten how the current events tended to bring personages to power to the fore. He hesitated, being perhaps about to forge something deferential, when Protis spoke up.

"Void-Maiden," he said, his mouthpiece crackling and translating his clicks and croaks, "Ether-Guardian. Mother Magic... This one knows you by many names. How curious is it that you wear a face for those of Earth - can they not taste you as we can?"

Nasir maintained her distance, but her posture remained casual. "Oxygen is odorless and tasteless, old friend," she supplied. "Taste isn't as intricately woven with Terran respiratory needs as Ether is with the Houses'."

Protis looked disappointed, somehow. "How unfortunate. They would be less fractured if they could taste of the Primacies as we do."

Nasir stepped forwards. "The Thrones," she said. "The Primacies - it's how his people refer to yours."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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The mention of Squeaky and his spouse caused the werewolf to pause and look at the couple, unsure of whether they would want to go.

Pushing aside his skepticism at the Smith's claims of being free of God, the Throne also looked their way and shrugged lightly. "It'd have to be their decision. It's not our place to determine whether they'd be happy there or not. They're both used to this place being their home, and it'd be a culture shock for them, to be sure. If they wanted to come with us, we would make sure they'd have a place to stay for the time being, and they could probably help out with maintaining the Tower, with their skills."

He looked more directly at the two innocent demons. "You're free to come with us, if you like. Where you'd be staying has demons, angels, and mortals living together, in their own apartments. There's always work to be done, so I doubt you'd feel purposeless. There's people to meet and talk with, even if it's just us and our associates, depending on your comfort level. However, I understand if you would prefer to remain here."

***

Alana mulled over the warthog's suggestion and then nodded. "That sounds like a plan. Get to it," she replied.

Aislinn looked over at her lover and nodded as well. "You get started on the flare. I can create a fireball that'll act as the booster and then redirect toward the shadow pools with my TK," she said.

***

Aspasia gently unwrapped it and looked inside the bodhran's case, marveling at its beauty. However, she felt it wasn't safe to linger too long in the bedroom with the precious item. She closed the case and re-wrapped it the best she could, wanting to leave as little evidence of its presence as possible.

Venturing back to the vent, she slid the drum in first and hoisted herself back into the narrow space with ease, closing the bedroom's panel. She crawled back and carried the parcel in one arm. The other vent popped open and down she came. "Found it," she declared, holding the case up.

***

Abdiel stopped the massage and focused on creating a solid veil to cover the newborn feathers. Over the course of a couple minutes, a solid and realistic veil manifested, giving his wing the more typical rocky limestone appearance. "There, that should do for now. I'll have to reapply it within the next week, but no one should notice the changes."

She smiled warmly at his compliment. "Thank you, Mel. Anytime."

***

The mention of the Order of St. George caused the Nephilim to raise a brow. "Even if they don't know it exists, it kind of makes sense why you'd store it there. They're at least somewhat progressive, given the diversity of their members. That energy of the keep doesn't mess with the essence in the weapons, At least, it seems that way to me," Nami surmised with a light shrug.

She looked over at Allocer. "What weapons work best for what your goal is?" she asked him.

***

The Throne of Air smiled gently and bowed her head lightly and humbly as a greeting. "I'm flattered by the many epithets, but you can call me Ariel. It's not really in my nature to request grandiose titles. It's also a pleasure to meet you," she responded.

She gestured with her chin at the gathered instruments. "I heard your assorted orchestra from downstairs, so I figured I'd come up here to take a look to see what it was. Matriel had business to attend to with your patrons, Mr. Geier, and he asked me to fill in for him," she explained.

"Walpurgis is one of the success stories of demons and practitioners collaborating beneficially, so don't be surprised I'm aware of your name," she addressed.

Ariel eyed Elena and Protis, still smiling. "I'm aware of the residents on the Gilese 581 C space station who can manipulate anti-via much in the same way archmages can. The Vanguard or Space mages, if I remember correctly. It's been a while since I've frequented it."

She looked over that the insectoid alien. "I'm aware that the Akari traveled there a very long time ago, Elder. I'm glad to see that your people are still around."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

Post by IamLEAM1983 »

Squeaky's follow-up question was a bit odd, and fairly revealing:

"Is work in the mortal plane more challenging?"

That left Archie to briefly look away in thought. "Well, er - currently, finding work is challenging for various reasons, but based on your current qualifications, you wouldn't have long to wait until postings would open, regardless of whether Heaven or Hell wins the conflict we find ourselves mired in. Our group could still refer you to allied employers that would have need of someone on the supervisory track. Honestly, the only real barriers would be cultural, at the onset. Judging by what we've seen, you would recognize the function of much of what we have. You owe your understanding of English to mister Coombs, but the wider world contains a myriad of other idioms to sample."

The worker looked back to Belial. "Honestly, sir? I just want to be anywhere that isn't where this Quint fellow is located. I'm sure you have your reasons for keeping him on the supervisory track, but he terrifies the rest of us."

Belial looked like that information hadn't reached him. "I'll have to put in an audit, then, maybe discuss with Quint directly."

* * *

Nodding, the warthog took a few spaces away from the two women and cupped his hands together, eyes half-lidded as he drew on the smaller of the local ley lines, careful to avoid Sophia's own mainline. Weak sparks took shape in the bowl his hands served as and steadily proliferated - like popping kernels in a bowl. Before long, he found himself holding a large and unusually fizzy-looking fireball that wouldn't have much of an arc or travel capacity on its own. It would last long and descend slowly enough to illuminate the desired area, while still having enough of a short half-life to fully dissipate before reaching the ground. Carefully, he repositioned himself while keeping his hands in place, and nodded at the roane once she'd have enough space to add in her own alterations and supply the Hellish flare with kinetic force. He lifted his head as he did, looking a bit like a mortar officer trying to calculate the best possible trajectory before firing his payload.

* * *

"Awesome," said Three. "I'm guessing you're coming with, Meris?" he asked of the Archmage, as he motioned to take his plate and carry it back to the kitchen. As could've been expected, Gubbin intercepted him and took the plate from his hands.

Something springing to mind, Drake gently squeezed Gubbin's elbow as he left. "Um, Gubbin - could I ask you to give mister Woodford a bit of a primer on things? He's, well, desperately green, no pun intended. He's got centuries to catch up with and we're still on the clock, so..."

Agares nodded as he also stood up. "There's that, plus the McLusky guy needing a flat 'till he can settle some company headquarters for himself.
- I'm on it!" said Bucky. "Don't worry none sir, we'll have a chunk o' home set aside for you in no time flat!"

* * *

Chuckling again, Mel winked at her, gently pinched her chin for a second and then stood up. "Let's see if the Seward guy's worth a damn as a secretary, then, now that you've lifted that pall of narcolepsy off of his shoulders..."

Enlil crossed paths with them one level lower, while they still made their way to the conference room that had been used yesterday. "Good morning to you both," he said, smiling as he hefted his own coffee cup. "Did you sleep well? I hope I didn't keep you up; the ventilation system is shared, vertically, and I'm fairly certain my own vents led up to yours. I don't amplify my lute if I can help it and I tried not to sing too loudly."

Melmoth felt a bit disturbed by this, but concealed it with a shrug and by stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I think we might've heard you, honestly, but Abbie and I slept through it, as far as I know. What were you singing, again?"

It was Enlil's turn to shrug. "The basics, seeing as they're the first things to go away once you reach my age. Foundational myths. Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the world arising out of the Place of Dark Waters... Assyrian in an of itself, as well, since I'm essentially the only living speaker of the idiom that I know of."

Smirking, Melmoth extended a hand, his card wedged between two fingers. "Tell you what - call me whenever you feel like working on your Assyrian. It'll be less lonely, that way."

Taking the card, Enlil inspected it before nodding. "Thank you, mister Othstein. That's very gracious of you."

* * *

Allocer stood up, straightened his tie and buttoned his jacket. "Anything that mangles a body enough for a demon to be forced to look elsewhere."

That obviously worried Lucifer. "I was thinking you'd just, you know, repatriate yourself to Magnus Tower and wait for an occasion to be all heroic and stuff!
- I never told the mundane officers on the force," replied the former Duke, "but I have their names on a separate SMS mailing list. If I'd wanted to send as many of them into a trap to vacate the mortal ranks, I would've used it. Instead, I'll be using it to have them rise up. They'll take the hint once they realize all of Hope's thirty thousand mundane officers received the same text within five minutes."

Allocer didn't stop to gawk at the armory, and selected two pistol belts and a few rifles to sling on his shoulders. He paused at the sight of a separate rack and glanced back at Akaios.

"Have you ever impounded weapons identified as originating from my battallion?"

The Judge clicked his tongue. "Someone wants his old pointy stick back, I take it, hm?" he asked, smiling. "Right this way, please..."

A few moments later, a caged selection of bladed weaponry was unlocked, the blades all looking both cruel and impractical - unless you were Allocer's size. Without hesitating, he reached for a claymore with a serpentine edge and a perpetually glowing tip, as though it had been pulled from the forge only moments ago.

"Hello, old friend," he quietly said, a look of mean relish crossing his features. In the meantime, Akaios had fished out a fitting scabbard and handed it to the redeemed Infernal administrator.

* * *

Nasir didn't look too bothered by the importance of the woman who stood before her. "Most of those who call those of the Vanguard Space Mages tend to border on the provincial," she said. "You clearly do not."

Protis lifted his lower right forearm, the other one balancing him on his staff. "Please, my Queen; the Thro-neh meant no disrespect.
- I know," airily replied the woman. "Neither do I."

Protis inclined his head. "Apologies, Ari-El. We both call the Iron Cradle home, but the Vanguard-Mother and her First Daughters came to be in the Cradle of Light, far off in the star-darkness. Many, many times passed in one breath, leaving our world colorless for her."

Otto nodded as he came closer. "Yes, I've heard of it. The Nasir-Koslov Anomaly, recorded in 1975. The latest postulates offered an Einstein-Rosen bridge as the source of your momentary disappearance, as well as the supposed thirty thousand years you spent seating your new species in a garden world you would one day yearn to return to."

Nasir's smile betrayed her dwindling patience. "Why inform a Celestial Throne of the obvious, Warlock?"

Geier's flat nostrils bristled, but he maintained his countenance. "Please forgive my academic interest; several unfortunately tend to forget that we practitioners still attempt to maintain our social graces," he said, subtly taking a jab at her abrasive behavior. "Growing distant at the favor of a temporal anomaly does not excuse certain slights," he said, then putting a more good-natured smile back on his face.

"Now, then - how may we be of assistance?" he asked Ariel, even if he kept his question open. Protis opted to seize that opportunity as a palate-cleanser.

"Bones and ant-lers and chimes - I see no Ether in your magics, Geier-Otto. Is sound alone sufficient?"

Geier mutely thanked Protis with a nod and glanced at Ariel to include her. "A Cantor's discipline is sympathetic by nature - we harness our intent and our own energy through sound, amplify it and release it in the same cycle. Via free-flows in the atmosphere while following general currents - those we call ley lines - and all things that live or otherwise exhibit sapient life have at least some chance of drawing upon it. Our bodies aren't necessarily required as tools of the trade, but most of us still feel comfortable electing one side of the body for absorption and the other for projection.
- But you were... changed. Corrupted. You call to this world's breath but have... sampled others."

Otto nodded. "Just as Ariel knows that via can have beneficial effects on organic beings, so can Hell's own byproducts alter us. I sacrificed an appearance I cared little for to ensure that my family would know peace and that my compatriots would settle on these shores without fearing for their lives."

Protis looked back to the protection staves that surrounded the helipad. "We are allies, yes? Then I would offer my Ether to your efforts, Geier-Otto. My brood will not answer, for there is too much black between us - but those I now breathe will come to my aid if called - if Air wills it."

* * *

Passing the moon, the Lunar natives and scientists shared the returning Martians' dismay, as silence enveloped the shuttle. Usually there'd have been quiet in-flight music or the chatter of the other passengers, maybe even a distressed Martian infant crying as a side effect of the required gene therapy shots required for any non-terrestrial mortal to return to the seat of their species. There'd have been something to drown out the foldspace drive as it powered down or the passengers seats' torus rings gently creaking as momentum supplied them with a comfortable and constant Terrestrial gravity.

There'd be nothing, this time around. Nothing except the pilot's voice betraying the slightest hint of dismay.

"Earth on approach. Prepare for cabin rotation."

Europe was a sea of fire, black soot looking like it had filled the Mediterranean's void and joined the Greek isles with the mainland. Africa was burning wherever it didn't look as though the forests, deserts and savannahs were threatening to choke its cities. Johannesburg was now a bleeding gash that wept for miles and miles out to sea, covering half of the continent in steam clouds. The ionosphere quickened them and made them produce rain that fruitlessly fell on other contained infernos. As North America came into view, anyone could see how wide gashes had formed in the seabed, forming storm clouds that separated the East and West hemispheres. They sailed past raging cyclonic systems that seemed determined to hold their ground, preventing anyone from the Old World from reaching the New.

The United States were a burning plain, clouds from innumerable fires blotting out the ground. Cities looked like lurid expanses of tortured steel, whenever you couldn't trade one of the enclaves' outline with a finger: neat little rectangles and squares about the size of a small city, with pockets of green, shades of asphalt, the glint of skyscrapers. Never quite far off, other pockets of recognizable structures waited, surrounding by flora quickened in Heaven's advance. From up here, the battlefields couldn't be seen. Things almost looked placid.

Then came Hope.

Its geometry was almost unrecognizable. Some unnamed power had seemingly tampered with it, entire avenues and boulevards poking like spikes out of a distorted 3D model, some of the city's vertices stretched out towards infinity. Centennial Park was one such spike, a verdant band that clipped through the other streets and buildings and that extended far off into the Atlantic - until their descent made them reach a point where the world's geometry seemingly righted itself. Pop, and there was the Tree, there was the Sumner Gazebo - all greenery now stamped out, the city's Nexus valiantly holding on for God knows how long. The spaceport was at the edge of Hope's enclave, a deceptively stamp-sized patch of urban tedium. Across from it, and in the tortured remnants of Renton's high-rise office parks, only one tower stood unmarred, its warning lights blinking purple for any planes and helicopters of the resistance that would've landed there. They would've just had time to spot the large runes someone had painted on the helipad, before re-entry obscured the passengers' windows.

The Arrivals terminal would've been similarly different. Red and green-skinned TSA officials sporting horns, radiating with enough power to dwarf some elder blood drinkers - and preoccupied with luggage scanners and the terminal users' personal belongings. A suit-wearing and bat-eared nightmare argued on the phone with the sort of pitch-shifted voice scared mortals could've only dreamed of, telling someone else he didn't want macaroni for supper.

Hell had come to Hope - and tedium had reached Hell. A haggard-looking and disheveled Poodle anthro at Baggage Claim processed the traveler's tag and fished out a set of keys that had been kept aside months earlier, holding them by the car's own fob.

"You're still parked in 6-D4, mister Vlastos. Welcome back to Hope."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

Post by Karl the Mad »

One could still get news of Earth on Olympus Mons, if one were exceptionally clever and resourceful. And even with the world gone to hell and every other one of the Host out for his ichor, Marius Vlastos liked to think he was still exceptionally clever. Then again he'd had advance warning, had he not? A chance discussion with Ephesian himself, on the eve of those Shield bastards breaking into his Hope vault? Oh, the drama had gone on apace for some months more but in the end the Shield bastards won out and Vlastos had been forced to reckon with the wreckage of his unlife.

Or so he had thought to himself in the long days of depositions and statements and meetings that followed. One foot in front of another, one second after the next, focused on the Here and Now, discarding the There and Then as pointless past moments. All the while feeling like what was left of his soul was being dragged across melting shards of shattered glass, feeling like he was about to be crushed at any moment beneath the weight of centuries of hatred and nihilism.

Somehow he made it through the Here and Now, and when one day he looked back on the There and Then and wasn't immediately consumed with the need to fight against the screaming, he realized he could start over. There was a new Here and Now, one where Alexandria Antiquities was still largely intact even after he'd signed away the majority of his liquid assets to cover tax bills he didn't care to think about. Where he still had employees who were willing, against all evidence, to forgive him his transgressions while he'd been cursed. Not all of them, perhaps, but enough to make him wonder what the hell he'd done to them.

In the Here and Now where he realized he had forgotten vast swathes of his life, and so his new goal was to remember. He'd always had a sense of himself as Greek, but months of Karthian-aided introspection one day revealed that no. He was in fact Egyptian by birth! His parents had been Greek and they had left Greece for reasons he had never bothered learning. And how could he learn now? Hesiod and Iduma Vlastos had left little imprint on the world, and he had no desire to disturb their ghosts.

And when the time came that the ghosts were being disturbed anyway, well. He was long gone. He could read the writing on the wall, after all.

He sought refuge on Mars, in a crater within the dead caldera of Olympus Mons. A crater in a crater, if one wanted to be snide. A crater he had in the past retrofitted with various bits of technology to render somewhat livable, for vacation if nothing else. There was just enough economy on Mars to make not stocking for years on end somewhat tenable, and even as the world was going to hell he still had aliases and connections he could lean on even from way out there for blood and supplies and illicit pirate news feeds.

He bickered with the feminine AI servant which tended to the place. He sipped his blood stores, he watched the news and learned of the irresistible victory of Hell's forces. The insane Enclaves, the paper-thin "administrators" now governing the world. He watched satellite feeds as the planet was crudely warped into a facsimile of Hell. No, that was inaccurate; Hell was literally bleeding over, and if one looked at it sideways one could still see Earth beneath it. At least until one's eyes twisted in their sockets and Hell reasserted itself in one's vision.

Marius hated it.

One year, he told himself. One year he'd hide out, eking out a miserable existence below Mars' highest peak. One year listening to that wretched voice droning on and on, of watching the news, of being so removed from everything he'd once held dear that he could finally approaching something akin to what might be healing someday. He listened to the recordings of his therapists and minders, he did his emotional exercises and his mental gymnastics, he recorded every scrap of memory new and old his half-assed meditations brought to light. If he could not trust his memories, he could at least trust the residue they left behind on the little memory stick diary. Every day crawled by in that manner, punctuated by the odd trip to Ceres Station for rations. No sense buying blood way out here, but the matter assembler back at his crater could make damn well anything as long as he had enough biodegradable stuff to feed into it. And if he used it to make more of the transformation-suppressing enzyme than he used it for blood, well, so what? He couldn't afford to tear his clothes up more than he already had.

At the end of the year he put his space suit on, downloaded the AI (he'd named her Minerva for whatever reason) onto his diary drive and set out to the Station to arrange for the long trip back to Earth. This time he used his real name, and why not? He wanted them to know he was back! They'd know anyway, eventually.

He slept most of the trip, tolerating the closeness of people in the cramped shuttle; the silence of the final approach woke him up, as sudden silences sometimes do, and he watched the burning Earth and its various facets as they drew near. Instead of fear, though, it only made him feel a petty sort of annoyance. 'That should've been ME that set the world aflame' were the words to go with that feeling, if he'd felt like finding them. He moped until the landing, then got up and followed the crowd out into the terminal. Everything he really needed was already with him, but for the sake of mundanely blending in he'd packed a suitcase of clothes and toiletries, knowing full well that passengers without luggage attracted attention when those with luggage could pass on through.

Finally he faced the anthro poodle, who said to him the most polite words he'd heard since he left a year ago. So he replied in kind. "Thank you, sir," he said, his voice hoarse and raspy from disuse. Keys and suitcase in hand he went for the parking level, fully expecting someone to accost him at some point, once his name and face worked their way through the system; he just wasn't sure who, exactly. More demons, one of the Host, some Shield bastard or another? Or maybe some random fucking pitspawn he could pummel for old time's sake? Oh, wouldn't THAT just make his day!
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