Evil's Return Chapter 4: Field Trip
 

The front doors of the Citadel were caved inwards. No mean feat considering they were made of six inch thick steel.

Inside the door, bodies. Some were neatly cut in half. Others were burned to the point they were barely recognizable as human. Some lay dead without a single wound. Others looked like they had been partially consumed. The less fortune of the corpses began to convulse as their souls were dragged screaming back into their dead bodies and were enslaved by the darkest magic imaginable.

The surviving pockets of humanity fought running battles against a veritable army of corpses. Signs of the fighting were everywhere, and not a single hallway was spared the damage of bullet holes, the scorching of magic fire and lightning, or the splash of blood where the undead managed to concern an unfortunate human.

Along the path that lead to the depths of the Citadel, the destruction and slaughter were even more evident. To look at the damage alone would make you think the battle was one sided in favor of the defenders, as the passage ways, obviously designed as bottlenecks and choke points, were littered with bullet holes, craters, and the signs of attack magic.

To look at the corpse was to know that the battle was one sided in favor of the attackers.

At the lowest levels of the Citadel, in the room known as the Watch Tower, the battle had been especially fierce. For once, the broken corpses of the undead outnumber the number of slain defenders…but the outcome was the same. The bodies of the Protectors were strewn around the room like so many rag dolls. Some where still being feasted on by the undead.

On the other side of the Watch Tower, the ruins of the automated defenses, which had hastily been turned to face outwards instead of inwards, still smoked. A few undead prowled the chamber, but most followed at the heels of their creator…who now stood at the very Gates of Hell.

The Mother of Hell lay dying where she had landed when the monster had discarded her, bleeding to death from the wound in her side where the monster had thrust his hand into her body and taken what he needed to open the Gates. Now, as her life faded away, the last thing she saw were the Gates opening. The creature who had caused all this raised his hands as if in unimaginable joy…in his right had was a flaming sword, the organs he had taken from the Mother of Hell in his left, and the large, feathered wings on his back mimicked his arms. As the Gate opened, the demons marched out…only to be attacked by the creature and his undead warriors. And the Mother of Hell died as unholy fought unholy…

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Mariann Concorde, the Warden known as Farsight, bolted awake, the vision of the dream fading into the darkness she had known her whole life. She rubbed her blind eyes, but instead of trying to banish the vision like a normal person would a nightmare, she forced herself to commit every detail to memory. This vision is coming more and more often, she thought to herself, which means that the other paths that can be taken are starting to vanish.

Farsight was unique in her powers…she could see the past, the various courses that the future could take…anything but the present. Given the usefulness of her powers, it was not surprising that, in her old age, she was given a comfortable place to stay within the walls of the Citadel. After all, most hunters didn’t make to 70+, and she had made quite a few enemies in her time.

The fact that it made it easier for the Council to check up on her vision was just an “added bonus”.

She sighed, and reached for the intercom next to her bed as the vision weighed down on her. She hadn’t shared this particular vision with the Council just yet, because she still wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Why would a monster open the Gates of Hell just to fight the demons as they came out? How could he open the Gates without the offspring of Laurella? What was so powerful that it could assault the Citadel and win it way to the Gate in the first place?

She knew she had to start at the beginning. Her searching had found the intercom, and she pressed the button. “Yes, Ms. Concorde?” the young man on the other end of the intercom said. He was a young aide to the Council, who must of made a mistake somewhere along the line to end up babysitting an old relic like her.

“Matthew,” she said, “I have a rather odd request to make. I need you to see if you can find me the Prophesy of the Mother of Hell...the original, mind you, not a transcript.”

“Uh…ma’am…that’s a few thousand year old document…I can’t even say if it still exists or not-“

“Please, Matthew…I’m old and blind, not old and stupid. I know full well the document still exists, and is in the keeping of the Council. Just find it and bring it too me…it is of the utmost importance.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Ms. Concorde.” The young aide said, though Mariann caught a hint of exasperation in his voice. She let it go, however. If she had the document, it would make it easier to trace the vision back to when it was written. She had a feeling that, whatever was coming for the Mother of Hell, the devil would be in the details.

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At the Manor, things were getting back to normal…

…If you could call two men throwing a flash-bang at a old man and rushing to subdue him normal.

And if you could call a pair of high school students who claimed to be just returning a schoolmate’s bag during a fight with elite demon slayers normal.

Then again, given the situation…it probably was normal.

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Nathaniel turned and walked towards the exit as well.

“Yeah, this place is starting to become cultist central. The local S.E.C.A. branch has it’s hands full trying to keep things under wraps and under control.” Nathaniel looked at the other man, knowing he wasn’t getting the whole truth…but he decided not to pry. “If you want, I can pass along a word to Tessa…oh, that’s right, you don’t know Tessa. She’s the current liaison between the Protectors and the Council, and the S.E.C.A. agent in charge of everything involving the Mother of Hell. She says that S.E.C.A. forces in the area of stretched pretty thin at the moment…I’m sure they’d be able to throw a few jobs your way.”

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Well, that was a little easier than I thought it would be, Duncan thought to himself as he used his tracking spell to follow whoever it was that was trying to get away after the Death Book’s attack on the Manor. The thread had lead him to a park on the other side of the city. Okay…at teacher that lives in a park, the Society member thought, following the thread. He came to a stop as he reached what looks like the end of the thread. Ah, blast it, he thought to himself. [i]Either the guy is a tree, or he noticed the thread and placed it here. Tracing the string with his hand, Duncan found that the string apparently ended at a knothole in the tree. Great…just great…

Figuring there was no point in leaving a magic string around that could be tracked back to McCragge Manor, Duncan reached grabbed the string by the knothole to pull it out. As he touched the knothole, he felt the similar sensation of gather magic. Oh, cra-

Before he had a chance to finish his thought, the spell activated.

Once the spell was done, Duncan was quite surprised to find that he wasn’t dead. At least he didn’t think he was.

But given the landscape of the place he was now in…for all he knew, he could have been dead.

((OOC: Okay, Raiden…there you go.

To everyone else…you can go to Harm’s meeting or whatever. If things stay slow, I’m going to bypass the rest of the night and go straight to what I had planned for “tomorrow morning” game-time.))

Laurella was cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Kind of a "thank you all for saving my ass twice...and probably all those other times I didn't thank you properly" appreciation feast. She had already dressed for the event, wearing a simple black evening gown that had a thigh-high slit on the right side and stockings with small diamond earrings and her pendant. Nothing fancy. Her ponytail was folded back up and secured with a black hairclip. And thanks to Jenkins' training, she knew how to move in high heels.

She was glad she got her homework done early, or she'd end up having to explain her near Silva with Stacey growing more jealous the whole time.

Caleb scratched his chin in thought for a moment. "Yeah that would probably be for the best, but make sure she knows I don't want cultist clean up. I just kill demons now." He seemed deadly serious about that. It wasn't so much that he was afraid of cultists, though a lingering fear was still there. It was more that he didn't want to kill humans anymore. He was tired of it. If it could be avoided he'd rather just not do it.

Duncan was in a truly strange place. Of course, he could have instantly figured that out when the three multi-colored suns in the sky were busy doing a jig amongst themselves, but some people needed more hints than that.

The old man found himself standing on a road of pure gold and dark chocolate. Flowers on the side of the road sneezed puffs of powdered sugar as bees of crimson silk fluttered about the petals. Off the road, the area was filled with a fantastic forest of reds and blues, the trees sprouting leaves of crystal clear glass. Living books flew through the emerald green sky, every so often dropping a "Thou" or "exquisite" from their pages.

A small family of jackalopes hopped in front of Duncan on the path, one of them taking a nibble from the dark chocolate of the road before continuing on. The path curved and slithered about like a snake in the ground, almost as if it too were alive. And at the end of the road was a castle fit for the old stories, a moat of Sprite surrounding the walls of gingerbread and dark obsidian.

And there, just off the side of the road, sitting in a chair of marshmallows and reading one of the living books, was Thomas Silva, his thin-frame glasses resting on the crest of his nose.

"Well, hello there, sir. Welcome to my little home, though you certainly could have knocked first."

"Fuck!"

That was Josiah's reaction upon waking up and realizing he was blind.

He remembered...

A flash of light as he tried to slip away that was brighter than the sun, right in front of his eyes, digging in like daggers. He also remebered a small thump, as he was hit.

He reached towards his eyes, but composed himself. He worked up a spell under his breath, and felt towards his optic nerves with a spell. They were dead. They felt like a gaping wound, something Josiah could've caused with a spell.

Josiah hissed under his breath. And then reached for his gun.

There was a small click from the very edges of his hearing, and he heard a pleasent voice say, "Please keep still, Mr. Martin. It would be a shame to have to shoot you.

Tessa had asked the twins who they were. Honestly, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to answer. Of all the questions he had expected, he certainly didn't expect it to be so simple.

"My name is Troy," he said, extending his hand to the woman. "And this is my sister, Trish. Our last name isn't important, really."

Suddenly, he remembered the sigil carved on his arm, and retracted it. Swiftly pulling the sleeve down, he laughed as he backed away. "In any case, were you shooting a movie here? Forgive us for interrupting, but when we see a fight we just can't help but jump in. How did you pull off those special effects, anyway?"

CLICK.

"I believe you were asked a question", Simon said to Troy, his desert eagle leveled at him, "and you failed to give a good enough answer. Not only that, but you have a sigil carved into your arm. You tried to hide it, but I saw, so don't play dumb with us. You are tresspassing on government property, just as we were involved in a battle with a certain elite branch of a certain organisation. That alone is enough to take you both into custody. So I ask again. Who are you both, and more importantly, who do you work for?"

Simon was ready to pull the trigger if a good enough answer wasn't forthcoming.

[edit:] NINJA'D BY THE HAWK!!![/edit]

"Hey!" Trish said. "You can't threaten a kid with a gun! What kind of law-abiding citizen are you?!"

The kind with desert eagles! Ha ha! the punchline came into her head a second later.

"Look mister, we just got lost and we didn't want to see anybody get hurt!" Trish said. "We already told you our names! And we don't work for anybody-- we're only 17! Child labor laws! We only work during summer vacation, and even then we just mow lawns for the neighbors!"

She seemed to shrink slightly and her eyes widened.

"Are... Are you really gonna shoot us?" She sniffed once or twice. "If you're gonna kill us, will you tell our mom we love her?" Hell, sympathy card works when all else fails.

"Then explain to me why he clearly has a sigil carved into his arm," Simon demanded. "I know you know more than you're admitting and I don't care how old you are, if you use sigils you are clearly magic users, so that either makes you wardens, sealers, or some religious organisation, all of which means you are a potential threat.

And all possible threats must be eliminated," he finished menacingly.

If Troy was afraid, he didn't show it. Instead, he tilted his head, his voice filled with curiousity, rather than terror. "What's...a sigil?" Troy blinked, raising his arm.

"Oh, this?" he asked, pulling the sleeve down again. "That weird guy in armor carved it onto my arm when everything exploded into flowers and he grabbed hold of me, right before he and his buddies decided to leave."

Even if Simon examined it closely, he wouldn't recognize it. The sigil was a part of Troy's family's ninjutsu - something that most people wouldn't have encountered, especially with its recent history. However...it didn't look like something sealers normally used either.

"Really, though," Troy said calmly. "The only person acting threatening is you. Not like you'd accomplish anything with that kind of attitude - you'd only get people killed. Then again, that's exactly what someone like you wants, right?"