Chapter V - Brimstone

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TennyoCeres84
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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The rise of sheer terror within the Nexus manifested in the dryad's eyes widening and tears brimming from them, followed by a gasp. Her back went straight as a rod as she felt the fear run through her. Sophia gulped heavily as she knew that she was the one that would do her best to see the Nexus through the coming conflict. She understood what the likely outcome would entail, but she had thankfully ensured that there would be last resorts in place to continue her guardianship over the area.

Once calmed enough, the nature spirit sighed. "Heaven might need to rethink some forms of insanity as a blessing, Gabriel," she countered. "Lilith's curse can also be considered as a blessing. All founts of via know this, even if it stands counter to what the Plane of Bliss considers right. Find a way to return them with their insanity intact, Heaven's discomfort ignored," she requested firmly. "We'll need it for what's coming."

***

Meris cursed at the sight of the Hellbeast and unfastened her seatbelt for more flexibility. With the window down, she slipped partly out of it and held onto the door for extra stability. Focusing on the creature, she shot a massive arc of electricity at it and a strong gust of wind to knock it off the vehicle. Simultaneously, the Archmage recalled the Architect's lessons and envisioned the required vibrations to petrify the horrifying monster, in order to freeze it from causing any harm to the passengers inside the antique car.

***

In such circumstances, it didn't pay to dither about on whether the strange man was more of a risk than the mentioned Hellspawn. Ashley wasted no time in letting the rhino in and quickly locked the door once he would have come through. As mentioned, the babysitter was of African stock, her naturally curly afro framing her head like a crown. The immediate rise in temperature at the courthouse hadn't reached the location, so she was still clad in a sweater and jeans.

The previously scented "ankle-biter" of Coach and Aspasia's appeared to be the perfect mix of their respective genes. Pulled into a ponytail, her hair was a lighter shade of brown with marks of hazel running through it. Her eyes were more a solid green than what her father's would visibly be, but there was something of a golden sheen from her mother. She wore a gray hoodie marked with the emblem of a local high school, a light aqua sweater underneath with blue jeans fashioned to handle her digitigrade legs. Her nose seemed a bit more pronounced than Aspasia's was. Given her attire and overall physique, the anthro would get the sense that she was about 16, who looked at him warily but also flicking her ears toward the oncoming screams with fear.

***

Since the trial was effectively over, Ciaran hurried to the front entrance of the manor to let the incoming refugees in and also texted his parents. He knew they wouldn't be able to reach the shelters quickly enough for the approaching onslaught and would be safer away from Hope. His message urged them to take the houseboat and sail up the coast, but they also needed to stay away from urban areas.

The male roane received an answer back from Cole, indicating that they would respect his wish and were leaving immediately. He and his sisters had told them to stock up on food and other necessities, as well as pestering them to make sure their home was in good repair. Sedna and Cole had questioned their children as to why, but their jobs required silence and only that a time of survival was coming. They had and were now thankfully heeding the advice of their kids.

***

With the rush of fear, Aislinn did her best to shove it aside and now appeared spitefully determined. "Great, now gather that resilient ego of yours, Herbert, because we need to get topside now!" she urged. "I'll help defend you!"
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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"I'll do what I can," replied the Archangel with some unease. "Heaven's policies concerning the undead are complex, it might take some time."

That said, he briefly refocused on Grimley. "For what it's worth, your friends didn't sacrifice their lives in vain. We have our beach-head, now, and a suitable Central Command in the immediate."

Horatio tried to go for gratitude, but his smile faltered behind his tendrils. He practically flopped in Phineas' arms, where his falsetto bawls would've been construed by most of everyone as bad acting. The ugly and absent-minded phlegm-filled snorts that left him weren't fake, however, and neither was the running layer of previously caked-on makeup. He might have gone for something more naturalistic outside of the big top, it didn't change the fact that he left Dickens' right shoulder smeared with purplish-blue makeup.

"Just - just go and claim your position, alright?" asked Dickens. "I'll find a few sips of blood somewhere, spike one or two drops of sherry in them - we can at least get his mind off of what's probably our kind's biggest culling since the Inquisition."

In the meantime, Arthur was glad he was removed from the epicenter of the Freaks' madness by a few generations. He hadn't asked of he and Alana's friends and descendants that they dogpile the rift outside, and instead had sent a few of his best operatives to a few key locations around the city. Fortunato Lots was where a lot of the city's negative energies tended to gather, and he wasn't without knowing of the Trismegistus Institute's artifact collection, as well as Amazo's. He knew a few trinkets housed some powerful entities, and wanted to make sure nobody would so much as be able to pilfer them for the Prince to claim. In fact, one of them returned just as Gabriel walked out.

"I got it," said the agent, a grotesque old man with nothing but his two fangs for teeth, but the agility of a Juliard graduate. "I got Ephraim Buck's cavalry saber!"

Arthur nodded. "Good - put it in the back with the mages. Were some of the graves disturbed in any way?
- No, t'wern't nothing there, boss! No corpses there done been raised since four Halloweens ago!
- Good - so our rear is covered for now. Now we're waiting for Quigley's pensioners and d'Aubignier's test subjects.
- Amazo won't be too happy when he hears about it, boss..."

Arthur gave Sophia a look. "No, he won't, but we'll have to weather that storm. It's a good thing he went across the street to curry a few favors with Summer and the Gruffs - I'd hate to hear him realize we pulled all his phylacteries out of their plush confines, stuffed them in a padded sports bag and made off."

* * *

Billy stepped in and closed the door, briskly engaging its locks. "'Ello, love," he then said, grinning at Miranda. "You do look like your Mum and Da... Same hair, same posture, same scent... Makes ya wonder if mum had sense enough to give you a go-around with a few guns, 'cause we might need it."

He then glanced out the living room's window and back at Ashley. "It's kinda complicated, is what it is - her Mum and Da know my, um, cousin's extended family, my cuz would've been somethin' of a more familiar sight, but he ain't around right now. Call it a case of a cripplin' sense of inadequacy. I'm Billy - Billy Hyde."

The rhino had barely finished that ominous shadows raced past the living room's baywindow, immediately followed by loud banging on the front door and several resolute shrieks.

"Alright, tea time's over - you ladies head for the guest bathroom over there! Miri, I need to know where your Mum keeps her guns!"

* * *

That took care of the first one, alright - but three more burst out of the blacktop behind the mechanical vehicle. Seeing this, Archie gritted his teeth, shifted gears and pressed on, slamming on the brakes in front of the security point. The guard visibly hadn't noticed the horrors ahead.

"I'mma need your guest pass or court-ordered-
- LET US IN, FOR GOD'S SAKE, AND ABANDON YOUR OWN POST! LOOK!"

Only then did the guard chance a look. He barely managed something like "Shit!" between his clenched teeth, that Holden had slammed the gas down and barely left the guard with time enough to jump onto the rear of the vehicle. Chimera Row was standing atop an artificial hill, the climb leading up to it marked with more slavering beasts and with the blaring horns of the wards' alarms. They headed inside the parking, the prison's gates slamming shut just inches in front of one of the encroaching Hellish lizards. Running, Archie shouldered the front door open, barely managing to catch his gibus before it would fall.

"This is highly official business," he blurted out, "and you will place Rupert Isaacs in our care right this instant, madam," he demanded of the front station nurse. She didn't look impressed. "Yeah, sure, and half of one of our yards got toasted and now it's swarming with bat-things and zombies and crap! We don't even know if Rendell survived that initial explosion! I can't just plop a release form in your lap and call it a day!"

The lobby's inner doors opened, and in limped someone who looked like one of the milder ends of Doctor Moreau's experiences, if played by Christopher Lloyd. The man had once been human, that much was obvious, but patches of greenish and scaly skin covered his face, his wispy white hair reduced to clumps that still hung onto parts of his skull. One eye was replaced by some sort of grungy, borderline Steampunk prosthetic, with the prosthesis amounting to a swiveling googly orb with its painted-on iris stucked to a strapped-on frame. The other eye looked vaguely Dryad-like, but its pupil didn't adjust to light like a human's. Its slit grew tighter at the group's sight, Isaacs' ad-hock hand prosthesis twitching towards his packed messenger bag.

"You can, Nurse Nichols, and you will," he said. "The mutagenic serum my son was dosed with won't result in stabilization for a few days. Until then, he isn't much more than a useless flare for the Pitspawn to gawp at, with the more reckless ones trying to actually touch him... If you've looked at the photo feeds, they've had limited success. Hope's innocents should be grateful, we've essentially directed a fair chunk of the invading forces towards a collective of men and women who know fully how it is that a firearm is operated. The Pit's advance scouts are going to butchered by Elysium's finest.
- Mister Isaacs - how'd you get past the cordon?!"

The mad scientist shrugged. "Demons and zombies gnawed their faces off. We'll need a new warden for certain."

* * *

Seeing as they were in a hurry, Herbert and Amenadiel shared a look, nodded, and the demon gave himself time enough for a brisk "Apologies, my dear," before two pairs of arms whisked the roane off her feet. Within a few working motions of their two pairs of wings, they'd reached the last landing of the tower and the first skylight in the ceiling. Phasing through it, they coasted down to the rooftop and ensured the roane had neither gone through cardiac arrest out of sheer surprise, or gone too stiff to stand up on her own.

"I promise we won't do this again," noted Herbert. 
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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Neasa held back a disgusted grimace at the sight of Issacs' extensive experimentation and frowned at the head nurse. "We have a room at Holden Hall he can stay in that's well-guarded, so you need to work on stabilizing the situation here," she countered to the woman's protests. "Even if they're the best of the best against a small horde of Pitspawn, you should be finding some means to evacuate them for their own safety. They'll only last so long. That includes Rupert Issacs. And given Rendell's insane tenacity, he will likely survive this stunt, so it'd be better for us to keep the man who knows him best safe for the time being. It'd be far wiser for us to bring him with us, so that's one less occupant you have to be concerned with."

***

"That'll be the least of Francis' concern, frankly," Sophia responded, still seeming rather grim. "Surviving this ordeal is the greatest one. Hopefully, Francis will be able to curry enough favors to beef up patrol of the Gruffs or something. I heard about Mr. Kramp and his injuries at the hands of the Dixie Squids. We'll have enough on our hands as it is."

***

"It's no Hell-dive, but it's enough," Aislinn lightly groused, holding her stomach slightly to calm the minor nausea she felt. She then surveyed the city skyline ahead of them. "Time to do your stuff, Herbert."
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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Gabriel sighed. "We'll have to make sure full disclosure is guaranteed in a reasonable amount of time. Until then - Sophia, Arthur, mister Rothchild - we muster. I'll see you outside for the forming of the ranks and the initial parlaying."

Lucian followed along, stopping to gawp as the reddish haze of Hell's encroaching presence on Earth was replaced by golden-white light shining down on the Tree from a radiant tear in the sky, something about Heaven's protective pall reminding him of the early days of spring. The air outside of the cavern felt oddly brisk and invigorating, cleaner than Hope's own generally clean air had ever been. Looking back, perched in the Tree's branches and hovering ahead of the group, a literal wall of angels encircled the Tree's half of the park, several among them raising their weapons or striking swords against their shields as the three of them stepped out. Lucian felt a weak chuckle of glee bubble in his chest, but it died as he looked out to what occupied the park's second half.

Demons had amassed in more traditional collumns, some clutching weapons, others simply repeatedly clenching their fists, teeth bared in a myriad snarls and shrieks of challenge. The Black Goat now being in full control of Leonard's former cellular structure, even his clothes had turned black, the body's former marks of corruption hidden underneath what looked like a fresh growth of jet-black fur. His cane now looked like a twisted caduceus, the two snakes coiled along the length of darkened and charred wood hissing as they rubbed against their master's hand. Seeing the trio come forward, the Goat whispered something to what looked like one of his generals - one of Paimon's former kinsmen, it seemed - and casually strolled forward.

"Gabriel! It's been ages, hasn't it?" he asked. "I could have sworn you would have decided to shave off a few decades by now - your cohorts all generally seem to prefer to stick to their twenties or thirties."

The Archangel shrugged, finger not too far from his gun's trigger. "It keeps me focused, and it helps me remember how much this mess in Limbo is costing us. Aches and pains have their uses, Ptah.
- Don't call me that," casually warned the Goat. "Now, what do I have to offer you to get you to concede some ground, hm?
- A complete armistice," replied Gabriel. "Everyone puts their weapons down right here and now, and we both go consult God. We find out exactly why it is that He's allowing this to play out.
- And the mortals?"

Gabriel glanced around. "This world is theirs, Goat. We've encroached upon it in ways I would've found to be anathema, only a few centuries ago. With Tom Magnus' plans, however, things already have irrevocably changed. Now we've got law-abiding demons that are contributing to the cause. It only makes me wonder what it'll take to destroy what's left of Uriel's patience, for Humanity to meet with the reverse. If your goal is to be recognized for your abilities, you're already in a favorable position. Disperse your troops, turn yourself in, and maybe you'll get to work your craft in a suitable field in a few decades. All you need is restraint in your practices and respect for mortal institutions."

The Goat sneered. "I have neither. You've known this for thousands of years. You know what I think of your precious deference to them - to their weaknesses and proclivities. So why demand these ridiculous compromises?
- I have to," noted the Archangel. "The Lightbringers are gone or unreliable, so someone has to carry the lantern. Someone has to believe. The first of us who could believe in them turned his back on them and chose to run away from the very kingdom he'd worked to build. The second is in awe of our Creator and grows ever more terrified of imperfection and injustice by the minute. If Uriel were to light Humanity's future, it would end in a blaze of Light and a world reduced to cinders. As exhausted and overworked as I am, I've never stopped believing in God's project."

The ungulate demon shook his head. "So you say, so you always say... What of you, Dryad? Have you demands or offers?"

* * *

"With pleasure," crooned the demonic attorney, his clawed feet clicking against the ceiling's concrete. He selected one of the satellite receiver's power boxes, opened it while whistling a tune and then yanked both supplying cables out. Electricity began to arc between the two exposed tines and then surged through Herbert, the demon only growing mildly more stiff in response. He craned his head back, closed his eyes, and then slowly exhaled, mentally putting aside the numerous compromises and logical exemptions that stood in the way of his pride's full magnitude. He moaned lightly, but in a way that felt less sexual than Tom's own noises and more... self-satisfied, somehow.

"Oh, yes," he purred, "I would've loved to see one of the boys back at the old office try their hand at this," he said, directing his attention at one of the aerial receivers. By now, his eyes had gained an odd purplish glint, and he looked upon the slowly-encroaching demonic masses and Tom's ruthlessly altered terrain and sneered.

"You will not take this from me, curs," he said, his voice somehow amplified by the power he was channeling, even as the aerial shot out a beam of purplish energy that expanded into a dome that soon covered the entire campus. Tiny explosions dotted its surface as winged creatures slammed into it, quite visibly died, and then wheeled away with squawks and shrieks of confusion and irritation. Herbert then gathered his wits, breathed deep, and carefully re-socketed the cables, all the while visibly working to marshal his rampant ego.

"All of this is mine," he said to nobody in particular, "and, admittedly, yours as well."

* * *

"It's nice to hear some sense out of someone in these godforsaken walls," scoffed Isaacs. "Either way, Nurse - I'm leaving with them, or Hope loses all hope or turning into anything more than a war zone. Magnus and the angels might be able to broker for the establishment of a protected zone post-conflict, but the new mayor in town won't part with these new assets anytime soon.
- You weren't so much as put on probation," she protested. "It isn't as if-"

Archibald sighed. "As it stands, Madam, we are the closest thing resembling a functional constabulary. Once more, my lover finds herself at her wits' end with a crumbling infrastructure and chaos yawning at her heels and once more, the local ruffians will waste no time in reclaiming their lost ground, once a semblance of stability is restored. For now, all those who are not armed and within reach of a rallying point are prey, purely and simply. You may either allow us to take this man in our custody, or watch as we take him in complete disregard for whatever silent alarm you're undoubtedly fingering, under the counter."

The nurse hesitated and looked outside. The demons had grown disinterested in the gate, largely since some of their winged cohorts had taken to serving as air taxis of a sort, dropping two of the big lizardlike entities in the parking lot.

"So it's worse than last year?" she weakly asked. "Worse than the Fae?
- People have already died," reminded Isaacs. "I might be willing to cast off my own humanity, it doesn't change the fact that these creatures have ends planned for us that I wouldn't wish on anyone."

The nurse pressed her lips together and looked back to Neasa. "If the city's going to Hell, I'll need my job to feed my kids. I have to report mister Isaacs as having escaped. I can still give you ten minutes' worth of a head start. That's non-negotiable."
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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"Mom keeps her stash of guns in a long case under the bed in the master bedroom! The combination is 742173!" Miranda quickly supplied, running off with Ashley to the aforementioned guest bathroom. The door to the bathroom was closed and locked, the occupants inside going wisely quiet.

***

"My would-be offers would echo Gabriel's, but I know they would be for naught, Goat," Sophia answered coldly. "I've seen what happens when some Infernalists make deals with most of the Princes, so if I made any demands to lessen the effects of the conflict, you would distort those, too. Everything would be for your gain, as it always has been and always will be."

***

Aislinn watched with awe at the oddly subtle yet powerful demonstration of Herbert's well-contained pride. It was a breath of fresh air in comparison to the cloying, obnoxious variation of the Goat's. Upon the sight of the incoming demons, she readied her arcane defenses for whatever else might come their way.

***

Neasa sighed and lightly bit her bottom lip, looking back to Issacs and the others. "That'll have to do. Thank you for this, ma'am," she told the nurse.

The strongwoman then looked back to where the Hell lizards were in the parking lot. "Even with the angels watching out for us, we'll still need to be on defense. Those things will be attracted by the movement of the vehicle," she said as she ushered the mad scientist along toward the entrance.

"I'll stay on point," Meris responded as she followed after her granddaughter.
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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OOC: edited for Neasa.

Billy slipped past the two girls as the bathroom's door was closed, and found his way to the master bedroom, all the while whistling something that felt both nervous, gleefully homicidal and more than a tad jaunty; putting the numbers supplied to what sounded like the Ink Spots' Maybe. He seemingly happily ignored the mounting racket as he keyed in the code and worked the case's latches - only to realize he had no patience for Aspasia's painstakingly field-stripped ordnance. Fingers waggling, he opted to yank a Paradise's rifle barrel out of its housing and forced it down a hole in the weapon's butt that did have the right diameter, but an incorrect rifling. With his makeshift club in hand, he headed back to the front room, opened the front door and whistled sharply. It didn't take too long for the same two distinct roars to rush back in, riding on the lungs of what looked like a hairy iguana with extra horns and an obese gorilla with three feet of excess tongue and what looked like flint stones for knuckles. Crooning all the way, and with a rather homidical grin on his features, Billy stepped aside long enough for the two demons to lunge in, and then proceeded to bash their heads in over several long minutes.

For Miranda and Ashley, the resulting soundscape would've been close to nightmarish, with Hyde exchanging mean laughter for the demons' hisses or growls, with his own screams of pain affecting annoyance and something that felt more like a bruised ego than like anything resembling actual, physical pain. Over the long run, the growls and hisses turned to weak whines and yelps, and Billy's insane crooning turned from the proper lyrics for Maybe to something that felt like amused and exhausted moans. Grunts of effort followed, followed by warbling shrieks and the sounds of tearing flesh.

Dead silence stretched out for a good ten seconds, then followed by a gasp and another peal of laughter from Billy. "Oh, bollocks!" he swore at nobody in particular, "I almost forgot the girls! Hang on, ladies!"

He demurely knocked on the door with a knuckle. "Um, Miri? Billy, here. Coast's clear, I'd say, but your folks are gonna want to set a dry-cleaning budget aside..."

As luck would have it, Silas and Aspasia finished their trip back home moments later, Robertson rightfully pulling one of his guns out at the sight of his ruined and generously gore-streaked front door. For a split-second, he looked about ready to shoot at Billy.

"Hyde?! Good God, are the girls in there?!
- Yeah, they're fine," shrugged the rhino, stepping aside as the lich opened the bathroom and almost bear-hugged his daughter, giving Ashley a sideways hug that was no less fierce. "Out of what fresh Hell did this mess crawl out of?" he quietly asked, his dismay obvious in how calm he's managed to keep his voice.

Billy shrugged. "You've got what looks like a fresh rift half a block over, on Seashore Drive. These two were scouts - numpty prats lookin' to set up a reconnoiter for the real big boys, over in the park. I yelled a few of the Squids' own gibberish at 'em; it got 'em yappin' right quick."

Coach sniffed and shook his head. "You're more helpful than I thought you'd be, Hyde. Thank you."

Billy grinned. "Aw, can we go for a group hug? Just mind all the blood - I just, uh, turned yer livin' room into a feckin' slaughterhouse, I did."

He then tossed his makeshift club at Aspasia. "Think I broke 'onna yer guns, too. Couldn't make heads or tails of any of it, so I just picked a long bit with a short and thick bit, checked if the holes sorta worked and just, y'know - pushed hard."

* * *

"And what if my gain were Humanity's?" asked the Goat. "An end to the tyranny of biology, to foibles and proclivities imposed on you by an uncaring Creator... I understand this invasion does not put the Pit's resources under a favorable light, but you should wish to limit damage to your roots, while I have much to gain out of the pursuit of more productive avenues."

Lucian produced a light tongue-clicking sound. "I'm familiar with these more productive ends of which you speak. Those in Amaxi's service infiltrate mortal life, seep into every nook and cranny, waiting for their presence to be construed as normal, for their madness to be seen as the new norm. Your turning an invasion into a putsch would be cost-effective, yes, but I will give my fallen brethren credit in that they, at least, do not skip straight to terrorizing the populace."

The Prince shrugged. "Overeager messengers, overzealous soldiers - every side has those.
- The fact that you'd dismiss this does nothing to convince us," added Gabriel.

The Goat eyed his second-in-command and sighed. "I heard the Archangel's offer and I know that what I promised to this Dryad was rebuked," he said, nodding in Sophia's direction. "What does the Architect's new pet have to offer?"

Rothchild smiled behind his tendrils, and gestured with both hands and all his tendrils, bands of visually conjured words of power coiling around his tendrils, and rotating like small shields in front of his hands. In response, the streets around Centennial Park seemed to freeze. Something like the distorted sound of glass shattering followed, accompanied by the sight of the entire world outside of the park's range exploding into a kaleidoscopic dreamscape of Escherian windows and doors, flat stretches of road turned cubic, with the few cars and pedestrians remaining diffracting across various surfaces in the white void. Understandably, even the angels looked shocked.

"A promise," said Lucian. "Your main column shall not leave this park, or they shall fall to the gray wastes where my Maker failed to bring Existence into being - in the margins of another god's Creation. "Seeing as you stand before us, as well, neither will you."

The Goat seethed. "This will not trap us for long, Weaver. We've dealt with your kind before.
- Oh, you've dealt with servants of the Others," opposed Rothchild. "You haven't met with one who serves the Architect and the World Tree. You might break through, but it will be with diminished forces. Of that much, we can be certain."

From the outside, it looked as though Centennial Park had been engulfed in a diamond-like dome. The effect was reversed out in the mortal plane, with there suddenly being a kaleidoscope's worth of Centennial Trees and amassed armies.

* * *

Leonard, Three and Alphonse had since made it to the street, the mobster pausing at the sight of the half-disco ball that had seemingly engulfed the city's main park. "Fuck me sideways," he swore, "I knew Rothchild had it in him, I just didn't know he had that much!"

Three was a tad more focused. "Good, at least that buys us time! If your boys have the courthouse, that leaves us on rift duty!
- We should head back to the Hall," noted the attorney. "I know Ciaran, Gubbin and Bagley are capable, but they're three men against droves. If anyone ducked in for safety, they'll need protecting. I'd be too easy for anyone to stick to the low road, possess someone weak or sick and just wait it out."

Three paused halfway to his bike to see how things were going with Caliban's handling of the situation. Unsurprisingly, the younger Smith having stayed away from Hope came with some perks: Three's SMS client contained a few messages informing him of the early stages of the crisis response efforts. The CDC was on high alert and already studying plants and wildlife mutated by Hellfire, FEMA was half an hour away from deploying sealed medical tents in Evangeline Park, and President Jones hadn't exactly been a slouch. The 43rd Brigade was already rolling in from Warwick. Looting and rioting was already being reported, and a quick gander at the news streams suggested Hope was one emergence point out of several hundreds along the Eastern seaboard. The projected map of Infernal incursions made America look like it'd caught a bad case of acne, with Canada and the northern half of South America not faring much better. For some reason, Peru was of little interest to the demons, but early conjectures supposed that beings accustomed to the higher pressure of a subterranean area would have some trouble adjusting to higher altitudes, where pressure was sometimes drastically reduced. A garbled video file showed exhausted corporeal demons gasping for air and weakly attempting to attack what looked like a Peruvian vlogger and nearby onlookers.

The same looked to apply to reasonably distant islands. The Caribbean had a few pockmarks but were largely unaffected. Pitcairn Island, off the coast of New Zealand, was entirely untouched. The Kerguelen Islands in the South Indian Ocean lived up to their nickname: as desolate as they were, their fifty inhabitants had nothing to report. Artificial holdings like rigs or carriers reported no activity, and the International Space Station was as quiet as ever.

"Come on," pressed Ephesian, "you'll get to check Buzzfeed later!
- Sorry," testily replied Three, "I just wanted to see how the fucking apocalypse is spreading elsewhere!"

* * *

Isaacs couldn't help himself but to gawp at the demons, even as Archie found himself forced to take the lead by jumping on top of one of the lizard-like creatures. Others were coming, but he wanted the Daisy Two and its occupants to at least have the chance to drive off safely. A few crank turns afford him somersaults worthy of a certain Manhattan native, as he finally managed to dig his sword cane in one of the Fiends' neck. Then using his cane's hilt like a pommel and his heels as spurs, he forced his hapless mount to bull through its friends.

"Get him to the car!" he shouted to Neasa!

Still, before she could, one of the lizards was tossed against the Daisy, something in its mechanism producing a noise akin to a rubber band snapping. Cursing, Holden killed his mount with a twist of his sword cane's hilt and jumped off.

"Meris - you'll have to use magic to re-seat the main spring and rewind it! I can't-"

He yelped and jumped away, stuck looking in dismay as his hat didn't follow his motion and was promptly ripped to shreds by two of the surviving Fiends.

"THAT WAS MY BEST HAT!" he screamed. "I'd toss you my keys, Meris but I really, truly must kill these abominations!"

Another dodge. "That, and they'd rip my arm off if I tried!"

* * *

The flying demons went for a second, then third pass, and then opted to perch on the surrounding rooftops, glaring at the tower and screeching indignantly.

"How long will this hold?" asked Amenadiel to Wormsworth, which made the demon shrug.

"As long as it can, honestly. My Ego may be considerable, I've never had to wield it in ways quite like this, before. I'm certain I could weather far more than these winged ruffians or even the few dozen or so ne'er-do-wells darting around the block's perimeter, but each attack feels like an insult directed at my person."

He peered through the anti-suicide barrier, looking down at the scattered numbers that managed to work their way through Tom's created nightmare of simultaneous sinkholes and raised sections of turf and piping, all with jagged peaks of obsidian-like Brimstone that somehow seemed noxious to the invaders. Hellfire, it seemed, could quite effectively fight Hellfire. The tower was encircled by a band of nearly-impassable terrain, with very large swaths of it having seemingly been permanently set ablaze. "For now, this is akin to being stuck in a room with unruly children: I can weather it easily. Once we are beset by more than scouts or overzealous grunts, however, I may start to feel a certain sting. I've never dared to directly oppose my Pride to the Goat's, for one, so there is only so much I can endure - at least, on the supernatural scale."

Amenadiel eyed Aislinn uncertainly. "So what do we do if the shield starts failing?
- You praise me for my efforts," replied Herbert with a shrug. "If we do reach this point, you'll find me in quite a wretched state, to be sure. The Goat may be no Squid, he can annihilate lesser dispositions. As much as it pains me to admit it, I am his lesser in that I have perspective enough to stand with you."
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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Aspasia caught the gun easily and initially surveyed it with a wince, then inspecting it closer. "It can be fixed, but I'll need to go after it with a solder. I've had a few soldiers in the past who favor force over taking aim at a target; they did similar with their rifles. When I was younger, I'd be chewing their ass out, but I eventually learned to fix these sorts of issues," she responded to Billy, putting the makeshift club aside for the time being.

She gave her Miranda a fierce hug and pulled Ashley into the embrace as well. She then looked over at Billy. "Thank you for protecting them," she said with a grateful nod. The fauness then looked down at the remaining gore. "We'll need to do what we can to get this mess out of here. The scent of decay might draw others, and we won't likely take the stench for long ourselves. There'll be a stain, but I do have some Fae incense I purchased once that should clear that smell out."

Casting a glance at the younger fauness, she asked. "Did you pack your things like I asked? The digital photo archive and the items you really want to protect?"

"Yeah, Mom. I even called my friends from school and told them earlier to head for the area that you said Hanako-san was setting up for refugees, in order to get them to Eien-no-Yuki. Hanako-san thankfully replied that they had gotten there," her daughter explained.

"Good girl," Aspasia said.

"Do you think we'll really have to leave our home? I guess school's probably going to cancelled indefinitely because of this, huh?" she inquired.

The former commander sighed and nodded. "Probably on both, even though you're on winter break right now," she mused. "Not to mention, Rendell will probably be by here within the next few days, if not later. I sincerely doubt his transformation will kill him. And if things really get tough, we might have to flee to whatever headquarters he has set up."

"What? Rendell?!" both the human woman and her child responded.

Aspasia frowned tightly. "Unfortunately, yes, it looks as though we might have to accept his help, such as it is."

***

Sophia looked at Lucian's display with with pleased wonder, momentarily marveled by what the Tree had allowed the Void Weaver to access. "Dryads and naiads do share one thing in common with angels and demons, Goat," she countered. "We come into this world wholly formed, given our objectives. Some of us err from our ways, and others carry on with their duties," she offered.

"However, we deal with what the Mother and the World Tree gave us, rather than complain about any flaws that come our way. It would have been better for you to join us as equals instead of squabbling for territory and thrashing out as you're going to."

***

Glaring at the fact that Issacs hadn't made his way to the car already, Neasa suddenly scooped him up bridal style and made a dash for the Daisy II. She quickly opened the door and put him in the back seat. "No more gawking; buckle yourself in and stay put!" she chided him oddly enough. Closing the door, she ran, leapt on the back of one of the offending lizards and strongly twisted its head until she heard an audible snap.

Meanwhile, Meris shouted, "We don't have time for you to avenge your bloody hat; I'll make you another one later!" Even if she was being partly snarky, the Archmage let out her best battle cry. It wasn't just something to give her more energy in her own attack, but it carried the destructive vibrations that would rend apart the lizard's guts from the inside out. Whether that came from her arsenal as a cantor or something she recently realized she could do, it was difficult to say, but it seemed to do the trick.

"We also don't have time to take out every single one!" the strongwoman exclaimed as she quickly grabbed the automaton and picked him up, somehow smoothly getting him into the driver's seat of the antique vehicle. "Now, drive!!" she barked, looking a little agitated.

***

"But it does make you smarter for having defected," Aislinn admitted sincerely.

"If Einstein's notion of insanity of keep doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is true, then you have a greater wherewithal than the Goat does. I think your future self would agree that you're doing an awesome job," she said with a big smile.
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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Billy looked surprised. "Rendell? What's that tosser good for? Isn't he-?"

He didn't finish, his eyelids fluttering as he raised a hand to his head and groaned. "No, egghead, now's not the time, we're all out in the open! You can't just-"

The rhino seemingly lost his balance, and seemingly gained three inches and fifty pounds in an instant. His bare skull sprouted a few dark hairs and a sparse dark crown on either side of his ears' roots. By the time his right foot shifted to have him regain his balance, he was an entirely different anthro rhino. Charles Wynn stood before them, uncomfortably stuck in Billy Hyde's now too-tight clothing. He blinked, giving Aspasia the telltale vitrous stare of farsighted people who would've misplaced their glasses.

"What- Where are we?" he asked. "We met at the restaurant, and at the meetup with Shield and the others before it," he said, tentatively pointing at Aspasia. "How long was I out?"

Coach could only shrug. "Billy stole my car, I hexed it to drive around the block. I'm guessing demons got clued into the car's pathing and opened a tear underneath the front tires at just the right time.
- I'm so sorry," immediately said Charles. "Listen, maybe I can-"

Silas shook his head. "Billy saved my family, mister Rothchild, and I have bigger things to worry about than a '76 gas-guzzler's body work. I'm not about to call for a tow truck with the roads around town being in the condition they're in, and I'm not kidding myself - demons will probably scrap it before the day's over."

Charles nodded all but briefly. "I'd still apologize, but I feel like I'm going to be sick. I never thought I'd come to in a charnel house."

Coach nodded at the others. "Pack up your things. Ash, I need you to get your parents and take the Pedway access on Crenshaw. Do you remember Mister d'Aubignier from last summer's Night Class? His apartment's a safe place."

That said, he refocused on Rothchild. "Your wife's still at Centennial Park, but I can ask one of Arthur's boys to shadow-walk her back to your armored condo in Old Hope. You'll need new clothes quickly, temperatures shifted so quickly we're bound to end up with spreading diseases. Suits and ties are suddenly seasonal again, but exposed innies and forced muffin-tops aren't."

Charles looked down on himself, which caused one of his chest's buttons to pop. "My Id's in better shape than me," he groused. "Figures."

* * *

"Such noble words," groused the Goat, "so utterly wasted."

He looked around and spotted some of Sloth's lethargic numbers idling near the dome's perimeter. "I WON'T SUFFER LAGGARDS!" he spat at them. An older gentleman who had been leaning on one of the Tree's more commonplace neighbors creaked an eye open. "Oh, we're not here for you," he said, stifling a yawn. "We're saving our strength for them," he said, glancing at Meris, "and all those outside - as was agreed."

The demon's eyes looked about ready to bug out. "You dare renege on your deal with me?!"

The old man openly yawned, this time. "Belphegor flattered you to spare us, give us time. Sloth doesn't favor war. Ours is to give rest to those in need. Let us tend to the wounded, and we won't interfere. Attack us, and we'll remind you of what happens when Sloth commits to a goal. We'll swarm you, drag you down to our Slumber. You'll have all the dreams of conquest you could ever want, in there."

Pride's leading Knight looked about ready to jump on the speaking corporeal demon and barely marshaled himself. "This is pointless," he instead seethed at the Prince. "Let us return to the front lines and sound the attack."

Down below the Tree, Alana would soon be greeted by the sight of more shadow portals opening, with various sleepwalking anthros and humans dragging some of her surviving comrades along, all of them seemingly locked in a life-sustaining sleep. A severely out-of-shape cop tipped his hat at her as he dropped a nearly-decapitated Freak near her. His speech was slurred and his eyes glassy, but there was something indescribably Infernal to him.

"We'll keep'm under as long's we can. Patch 'em up, feed 'em blood once they go autonomic - a dozen might survive. We've got more incomin'."

He then trudged back through the portal with what sounded like half a snore and half the sound of someone collecting their wits. As for the first of many survivors, his jaw was weakly working despite the fact that his neck had been reduced to a flap of dead skin atop the right trapezoid. The vampire's entire right shoulder looked to have been ripped off in a single bite by something fairly large and indisputably hungry. Belphegor's arcane rest kept the vampire's features relaxed and had allowed for the Freaks' regenerative properties to slowly try and mend the damage. If he'd been awake, he would've been a feral mess and would've been better off having its head cleanly lopped off by Alana.

Back topside, Gabriel said nothing as the Goat walked back to his troops' front lines with all the stiffness of wounded pride. The canopy of hovering angels waited, weapons pointed forward, for the first sign of the enemy's forward charge.

* * *

"I told you," seethed Archie, "the main spring's out of alignment! I can't wind the engine! Either one of you climbs back out and does it manually, or Meris uses some of that odd newfangled kinetic magic of hers and reseats it and rewinds it!"

Isaacs grunted and dug into his bag. "We're out of time, just stick this in the car's keyhole!" he said, handing a gray tube to Holden.

"What's this, then?!
- JUST JAM IT IN, YOU VICTORIAN NUMBSKULL!"

Frustrated if clearly in no position to argue, Archie removed his key and did as was instructed. The car's mechanical nature left plenty of room for the contents of the vial to produce uneasy sloshing and swishing noises, which soon transitioned to an odd crackling undertone. All the while, the air-dropped demons aggressively nudged the mechanical roadster, trying to tip it over. Suddenly, a clattering noise Holden seemingly found familiar sounded, following by the vial spinning the key slot around every which way. A gauge that would've been used to measure fuel reserves spiked from red to green, just as an oddly quaint set of backlit words winked out. The Daisy II's antiquated engine troubles had just been solved by the wonders of nanotechnology, its vintage white tires screeching on the asphalt as the car suddenly had an excess of raw horsepower to expend. Archie laboriously fought to regain control of the vehicle, which had decided to skid in a figure-eight pattern around two of the demonic lizard-squids. Once he had it, however, Daisy rammed the front gates with enough force to pop them out of their railing, and for the ride back down to the highway to be exceptionally perilous.

No demons were to blame, this time. Rather, they were going so fast down the slope's winding road that it took all of Archie's pilot skills for the group to avoid simply tumbling down into the forested area by the freeway.

"WHAT IN BLAZES DID YOU SPIKE HER WITH?!" screamed Holden over the engine's screeching coils.

"I CALL IT HEROIN FOR CLANKS!" shot back Isaacs. "A NANOTECH PAYLOAD IN A ZERO-FRICTION SUSPENSION! I DESIGNED IT TO PUSH MOST MOTORIZED AND MECHANICAL ARMATURES AHEAD OF THEIR FACTORY-TESTED TOLERANCES BY TWO FACTORS! IF I'D SHOT YOU WITH THIS, YOU COULD'VE SPRINTED FROM HERE TO BRATTLEBORO ON A SINGLE FULL COIL SPRING, WITH NO MOTOR DEFICIENCIES OR IMMEDIATE DAMAGE! IT HARNESSES FRICTION'S GENERATED HEAT TO KEEP THE NANOBOTS POWERED, UNTIL THEY BREAK DOWN FROM REPEATED USE!"

Archie nodded in the rear-view mirror. "HOW LONG WILL THIS TAKE?
- AT THE RATE AT WHICH WE'RE GOING, TEN MINUTES!
- AND AFTERWARDS?"

Isaacs shrugged. "THERMODYNAMICS TAKE OVER! YOUR ROADSTER'S GOING TO BECOME A VERY EXPENSIVE YULE LOG! WE'LL HAVE MADE IT HOME LONG BEFORE THEN! LUCKY FOR YOU, YOU'VE GOT AN ARCHMAGE IN THE PASSENGER SEAT! I'M SURE MERIS WILL BE ABLE TO SHUNT THE HEAT ELSEWHERE BEFORE THAT HAPPENS!
- I CAN'T SAY I'M PARTICULARLY REASSURED!" shot back the spy.

* * *

Being of Pride, Herbert reacted to Aislinn's compliment as though she'd just found his sweet spot. His hands went up to his suit's lapels, his eyes were squinted shut in a proud grin and his tail swished a bit faster. Amenadiel rolled his eyes in response. "If you beamed any more, I think planes could use you as visual guidance to land nearby."

That seemingly snapped Wormsworth out of it, leaving him to free one hand to support Aislinn by the waist as he prepared to head back down and inside the tower. "Baby steps, dear colleague," he said, lightly chiding the angel. "For now, my monstrous Ego is to be used in your defense. One day, I'll graduate to admitting that seeing mortals in casual sportswear isn't altogether that nauseating for me and somewhere in the distant future, I'll shake your hand without feeling as though I've tumbled down the social ladder with no safety gear."

"I can hardly wait," groused the angel.
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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"Now isn't the time to beat yourself up, Mr. Wynn; not with the Apocalypse happening," Aspasia commented to the rhino before disappearinginto another part of the house. Being something of a lucid prepper, the fauness didn't take long to reappear with a large rucksack filled to the brim with necessities, along with other items that would pass the time or bolster spirits. In one hand, she carried her guncase

Miranda quickly ran to her room and returned with her own rucksack, no doubt just as skillfully packed as her mother's.

Meanwhile, Ashley contacted her parents to get them ready to go and head for d'Aubignier's apartment, thankfully reaching them after a couple of rings.

***

In her arboreal armor, Sophia stood silently with Gabriel and Lucian, her defenses up jn prep for the conflict.

Aghast at the sight of the maimed vampire, Alana hurried with the dormant patient to Dr. Dickens to get him patched up and healed as quickly as possible, such as it was.

***

"I WILL DO THE BEST I CAN TO KEEP THE DAISY FROM BURNING UP COMPLETELY! WE MAY NEED HER SOMEHOW!" Meris promised, as she watched the rapidly passing scenery pass by and watched for threats.

***

Will a final look at the defenses Herbert had set up, Aislinn held on to him as she prepared herself to phase through the roof again.

She couldn't help but chuckle. "That'll be quite the interesting day!" she joked nervously.
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Re: Chapter V - Brimstone

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In the interval between Aspasia leaving and returning with her rucksack and gun case, Silas had guided Wynn downstairs and instructed him to pick up a few notebooks and arcane items. Aspasia would find Charles the newly-bewildered guardian of a handful of Legal-size notebooks from various eras, a Rubbermaid storage bin, as well as an oddly small box the lich slipped in one of his duster's pockets.

"What's with all the clanking noises?" asked the rhino, as they began loading everything in the Impala. Coach had since straightened out the car with a few kinetic spells and had at least taken the time to use magic to mend its windshield.

"They're foci," explained the former cowboy, "various knickknacks I imbued with specific effects. Magic on the go, more or less. They're useful to keep around if I need to be proactive with something but can't connect to a ley line."

He then paused and glanced outside. "The network under our feet is cracking under pressure. It'll heal, but convergence points will have changed. The Nexus might move too, but being what it is, relocation is a lot less of a problem. The outer ley lines might fluctuate by miles, the actual Nexus might only shift off-center from the Centennial Tree by an inch or two. The closer you are to the core, the more solid things get. Peripheral flexibility's a good thing in the case of cyclical disturbances like Beltane or Samhain's usual events, but a full-scale demonic invasion is well above any dryad's pay grade. Hence the foci - I'll need the support if we need to go off the grid, and there's no way I'm draining my wife or child for sustenance."

In so saying, Silas gave Miranda a serious look. "Now sweetheart, you know as well as I do that Mom knows what to do if I end up draining myself dry. I just need to hear you say it, alright? In which bag do my bones go, and where is that bag?"

A fire- and bulletproof canvas bag had been sitting in the car's glove compartment for years, having been sewn and enchanted in order to protect the bones of a human male. Coach had paired it to a ring he'd offered to Aspasia, in case said bag was eventually misplaced or stolen with him in it. He'd also had a tattoo artist carefully etch numbers and letters into each bone, in case he was ever recovered by someone with no working knowledge of the human skeletal system. When assembled, as was usually the case, these numbers couldn't be seen. Otherwise, him being a lich made reassembling him as easy as working on a Lego set: connecting bones seemed to have a life of their own when brought close together.

"And the box?"

Robertson patted his duster's side flap. "That's less something I want to use and more something I want to keep others from accessing. To make a long story short, the East Coast's frontier-town history had a lot of space for more than one undead gunslinger. This belonged to Slade McCoy, a cardsharp with a thing for black magic, rape and murder. He was one of the last of his kind by 1905, and I ended him - twice. Once to keep him from soliciting one of the Goat's friends, and twice to make sure he'd be trapped in his phylactery after I flayed and burned his bones clean and then ground them to powder with a rail-worker's mace."

Something then made him pause and turn back to the upturned living room. Knowing he would've Ascended if his own phylactery had been damaged or destroyed, he wasn't too worried. Having misplaced it in the chaos, however, seemed more of a pressing concern. Thankfully, Silas didn't need much effort to pick out "Little Silas" from the broken furniture and spilled gore: the blank bullet casing had rolled under one of the couches, but his being a lich made it so he sensed its exact position as well as if that unused shell casing had been an extra arm or leg. He then slipped it in the last belt hoop to the right of his gun belt, where the duster's flap would hide it.

"I don't know," noted Charles, "these nitwits didn't look like they'd know what to do with a random bullet casing.
- Most demons wouldn't," agreed the lich, "but they'd also know to take it to someone who could break the link between me and it.
- Why a bullet casing, though? Archie Holden gets a fancy glass reservoir."

Silas produced a workmanlike sigh as he helped Aspasia take her and Miranda's things to the car. "Artificial undead like the Clanks get to pick and choose; old-fashioned types like me or Zebediah don't. I thought I'd loaded all my cartridges on that day but clearly hadn't, and it isn't as though Zebediah gave me anything to shoot at, mister Wynn. I had nothing else on me that was hollow at the time, and most souls don't remember migrating to their phylactery. One second I was a normal human, and the next I saw the world through arcane flames that were pretty diligent in burning out my eyeballs."

The rhino winced. "Did it hurt?
- Not at all. I'm basically a better-kept zombie, mister Wynn; my via reserves replicate my body's functions. Everything else is irrelevant to that newly-duplicated nervous system. I'm not in the habit of discussing these details while my daughter's present, but let's just say every part of me that was organic felt like a dozen or so useless extra layers, the way you do in the spring when you overdress. Everything else, I'm keeping on the side for when she gets more of a yen for explicit horror movies.
- So if McCoy's bones are dust, what's the problem?"

Silas grunted as he set the gun case in the back of the Impala. "He wouldn't suffer if he Fell - he was prepared for it, the way madmen and some Warlocks can be. I'm not about to give the Goat a free asset."

Once everything was done, he clicked his tongue and looked back to Charles. "So it's back to Casa Rothchild for you, and then Asp and I are going to look into doing what we can. Belphegor and the vampires are going to send a lot of refugees our way, and they'll need feeding and triage."

* * *

Things were going about as well as could have been expected, until Archie's decision to turn on Colby Avenue turned to be a mistake. Making the turn had been bad enough, as he'd needed to ask Neasa to grab a streetlamp to force the Roadster to turn; but panic had caused him to forget he'd end up hurtling towards traffic in the wrong direction. Thankfully, the surrounding panic had forced the avenue into gridlock, so he threaded the needle between two vehicle corridors with a scream of partial defiance and exhilaration he'd pushed through clenched teeth. They were just about through and similarly almost ready to leave the main thoroughfares around Centennial Park behind, that a chance look in the rear view mirror showed Archie and his friends how they were now racing ahead of a raging river of what looked like coppery water.

"WE'RE GONNA DIE!" screamed Archie, uncharacteristically using a contraction. Sheer panic and the lack of foreknowledge might have had something to do with it.

* * *

Amenadiel and Herbert had fully intended to bring Aislinn down safely, but the sight of a lambent flow of Celestial light abruptly cutting the city in half understandably brought all three of them to a halt. "Lucifer's horns," swore Herbert, "what was that?!"

The angel looked more somber. "That must have been Gabriel. Uriel would have forbidden it, but he would've felt the need to circumscribe engagement zones. With this, any enemies south of Colby won't be able to receive reinforcements. This neighborhood, parts of Renton and the southern halves of Chinatown and South Little Italy should all be safe. This makes Centennial Park the official front lines - and marks Providence as an ideal staging ground for the Damned. Now we have to guard our own and protect our own borders until our own enemy contacts exfiltrate, are killed or otherwise starve to death."

Herbert lightly grunted. "Hrm, yes. They'll find hunger is all fun and games until you realize what you've been left to eat."

Amenadiel tsked. "You'll get your five-star chefs once Hope recovers from this, Herbert. Until then, it's Tom's vegan and lab-grown options or the Army's eventual MREs."

The dark-skinned angel then briefly looked down. "Speaking of the Army, we'd better drop you off with Tom and the faith leaders, Aislinn. I can sense Isaac Horowitz from up here - he's not happy that the only stonework you've got on offer is leftover bags of concrete mix and a hollow plastic gargoyle. I'd say he missed his vocation by becoming a rabbi; he's much more of a drill sergeant."

* * *

Both lines stared at one another for a few more minutes, the lot of it feeling like an eternity. Then, the Goat simply flicked his hand forward. In that instant, all throughout the world and wherever Hell's forces had broken through, all of then screeched one final time - then pounced. In other corners of the globe, the skies were briefly lit with the glow of Heaven's eternal summer. For an instant, clouds parted and the grass that had slumbered under its mantle of snow turned strong and green. Across the globe, Summer and Winter's principalities felt a rush of power as the World Tree solicited their Mantles beyond what was seasonally common. For one moment, all of the world's faithful felt the presence of their deity of choice more clearly and strongly than ever. In the following years, true disciples of Lucifer would come forward as having sensed him, an event that would have surprised even them.

Demons, vampires, angels and practitioners the world over all clashed at the same exact instant, more living waves crashing against one another across all continents. In that same moment, the final threads keeping the old order in place were torn aside. The ground shook as cracks of glowing Hellfire and founts of Celestial light both emerged, Hope being torn apart by what looked like a massive slab of Brimstone pushing from underneath the Hillard, even as Colby Avenue's pipes burst apart under the pressure of what felt to be almost liquid via turned gold-green. Quickly, the underpass turned into a river that surged down the avenue's length, cutting the city in half down its midsection. Those who were still in their cars were indeed crushed, only to find that they could somehow still breathe while under the radiant liquid. While despair would've been an understandable reaction, Ciaran and the two butlers would have front-row seats to the sight of whole families swimming upstream in the glowing liquid, stopping themselves at the favor of a mailbox, tree or streetlamp. Not a single channel wasn't reporting news by this point, and more than a few showed just how astonished these people were. Other rivers of Celestial light had burst and flooded other areas across the country and globe. All those it had swept away looked to be safe, many of them later claiming to have been healed by the substance.

Wonder and awe would both have to wait, for those in Centennial Park.

War had only just begun. 
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