10049/Path of Glory: It's Not Easy Being Green

Path of Glory: It's Not Easy Being Green
Date of Scene:	08 February 2022
Location:	The Edge of Creation
Synopsis:	John and Meggan are taken to the Silver City where they meet with the Presence to petition his assistance in the plight of the universe. The Presence listens and bestows John with the mantle of his emissary: The Spectre.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Meggan Puceanu, Chas Chandler
Tinyplot:	Path of Glory

---

John Constantine has posed:
How does one achieve want John Constantine has set out to do?

It's a good question. Not one readily answered in any spellbook, tome, or hidebound grimoire. The Key of Solomon serves as a veritable Yellow Pages for celestial servitors and infernal fiends, but there's one name absent from all those lists. A name of four letters.

Tetragrammaton.

The chalk, hewn from an ancient spire off the Isle of Wight, scratches an inornate sefirotic tree onto the charred foundations of a burnt-out club in Newcastle. It was here that John first felt the true absence of God, and by some twisting turn of madman's logic this was where he thought to try first.

The Casanova Club had been a ruin for years now. The gloomy night sky hung pregnant with rain above their heads through charred pillars. This was where Astra died. This is where Astra was damned.

He lights a cigarette as he finishes the last touched, turning back to Meggan.

"If this doesn't work I guess we go climbing hills in the Middle East looking for burning bushes."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Newcastle. Not many still breathing know the significance of the defiled grounds, and those that do would wisely avoid the condemned grounds. Torment strafes the exposed foundation. Every story of the place cannot guard against symbolic weight or the weight held by the city itself.

For good reason Meggan floats an inch off the ground until John finishes the drawing in stark white chalk.

So simple then. She considers the circles and then aligns herself to the middle path where mercy and selflessness mock the efforts of such lowly mortals as brave the impossible. A man and a woman. Nothing else.

"We go through the dreamlands," she refutes his notion of a burning bush. "Or failing that, hunt through the house or use the citadel to project a message upward."

The soft timbre of her voice trails off. "Won't be necessary, John. We will find a way." She brushes her hand up over her arcanely tattooed left arm. "Where you go, I go. I promise to honour that vow."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Another voice comes from behind the pair. It's higher in pitch and a little manic in tone. "Wow," says the voice, coming from a young figure on the precipice of womanhood. She's dressed in fashionable clothes for the time and her age. Purple and black striped leggings, a knee length skirt of black and a tee shirt with a fashion logo on the front. She wears a close fitted leather coat over it all.

    "Everyone's so busy these days. You'd think there was a war going on or something."

    Her voice may be unknown to this version of Constantine but her signature is all but clear to his senses. Suriel. One of the Archangels. And though she is in disguise, there is no mistaking the fact that she still carries her power with her even in this form.

John Constantine has posed:
"I'm not puttering around in some enchanted wood," John hisses through his teeth, crushing the chalk and flinging it off into the darkness, "We're going straight to the fucker. He's got answering to do. Or she. It. Who fucking knows. But we're not dealing with any doormen or sacred riddles or fucking angels singing high praises for eternity. We're going to see him alright? Him and no other cunt. I've - "

John is interrupted by the voice. The hairs on the pack of his neck stand on end, and he turns slowly to face the girl. He clenches his teeth, as though barely containing a desire to haul off and swing a fist a cute little teeny-bopper.

"No. None of you cunts. I want the Big Man, right? And you need to take me there."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
John is never the temperate one and Meggan's own present state barely tamps down on the emotional motherlode reaped from angels, mortals, mutants, and all between that would call Manhattan home. The quizzical regard of her fingers for a few brief seconds might make even those a wonderful distraction from chewing the inside of her cheek, holding off the cascading reaction that wants for little more than a flame to ignite the whole shebang.

The cheery and bright terror at their doorstep announces herself in sunny bombast, this time without the summoning circle on the Laughing Magician's stage. Another stage charred to a crisp by frantic endeavours, come to think.

"Hullo." It doesn't kill her to curl her fingers to her palm in a little wave, nor to raise her shoulders a bit. Punching angels tastes of copper rage, zinging across the psyche and landing on the unsettled surface barely held together. "Making a call home. Be a lovely thing for there to be an answer."

She pauses and edges closer to the magician, mindful of the sefirot he painted out, not about to distort the work. Would it even matter in the end? No. Probably not. "Hasn't been much of that, has there? Appeals, diplomacy, and taking a moderate path working out so beautifully."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Suriel's expression, a cheery smile that displays the radiance of the sun at noon, doesn't falter at the shot from John. To Meggan she offers a twidling-fingered wave of her own. "Not really. When the big, scary General calls you to arms you either suit up or you get booted out. And last time a boot was given... well... the results weren't ideal."

    She turns that cheeriness to John, the polar opposite in the current state. "Oh sure. I'm here to do that. You wrote the request out right... little rough, chalk isn't the best for detail work, but the general idea is there. So, here I am." She steps forward not seeming to find either individual all that frightening. "So you want to talk to the boss' Boss. Right? Umm... can I get a preface on exactly what it is you're looking for from Him? He's pretty busy, but I'm here so you at least got a time slot for it. More of a start than most."

John Constantine has posed:
"This," John waves a hand over his head at the seemingly still Newcastle evening, "This whole carnival of shit. It's going down on His watch. Because of some cosmic fuck-up, trillions of lives are just getting wiped out. Replaced with ... with what, exactly? Machinery? Fancy bags of meat that think for itself about as well as a lump of warm cheese? That's not what this was meant to be. Humans exist on purpose. To think and make their own fuck-ups. If we're going to ride this universe into the fucking fires of Hell, it's his job to click his tongue and let us do it. But a court-ordered clean-up was never part of the deal."

John's hands flex and curl into fists over and over again at his sides as he paces back and forth before the Archangel. His anger barely kept from boiling over, one shaking hand producing a Silk Cut cigarette to at least try and settle his nerves a little.

"'sides, I've got something he's missing."

It's there that John holds out a hand, showing within it a mote of pure white light. The very stuff of creation pilfered when they first tried to bind Michael. A missing jigsaw piece of the universe, hidden inside the Laughing Magician.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Suriel finding the blonde in John's knife-thin shadow frightening would, in its own right, be frightening. Meggan does not excel in terrorizing others. Usually.

The universe might be vibrating to a broken bit of code run amok. Thick treacle anger puddles over her, but she turns her face briefly to the skies overhead in an effort to pull herself together.

The light -- that essence of something greater than the sum and parts of a galaxy -- drags her right back. For a few seconds, all she can do is bask in the unfiltered radiance in his hand. "We're not looking for a second Fall." Her voice vibrates with the afterechoes of pulling too much life into it, and harbouring it deep within herself. "His sodding Voiceliness and the General will tear the whole of it up at the rate we're going. Erasing and restarting is one thing. What's about to befall us -- and does He even know?"

The question hangs there, a cracking note in the discordant symphony made of life. "Does He care?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Suriel pulls away from the glowing mote in John's hand. "That... is significant. Not sure how you managed to get it but here and now, don't know if I -want- to know. But I can take you there if you want to talk to him about this whole business." The archangel looks at Meggan with a frown.

    "That's a very good question... and one I -might- be able to answer... but first" She claps her hands twice and the Sefirot lights up before winking out and the trio are hurtling through space at tremendous speeds that defy logic.

    "Now... where were we? Oh, right caring" Suriel says with all the attention span of a hyperactive goldfish. "Well, as you know all things were made in His image. Michael had a blueprint and was told 'here do this' and so he did along with the one we don't talk much about anymore." She pauses as they fly past the rings of Saturn at breakneck speeds and continue on. "I'm pretty sure He cares about all of you... but let me put it this way. If you could feel every cell in your body. All 37.2 trillion--on average--and had names for them all. And you saw one single one of them go away. How would you feel? You still have thirty-seven trillion, one hundred and ninety-nine billion, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine left. Would you notice? Could you notice? He can and he has more than 37.2 trillion to notice. I know that much for certain."

    They've passed the solar system and the vastness of the Oort cloud into the infinities of dark space. "But because of the nature of this whole thing He doles out proxies. Michael is a proxy. I am a proxy. Humanity and all of mortal kind can be proxies. The Prophets of old, Abraham, Moses, Muhammad, Jesus... they were all proxies. Other universes, they have their own versions of various proxies. He is simply the webwork of it all. But he does care, he just..." She pauses a for a moment, as they travel beyond the galaxy matrix into the webwork of the cosmos. "If He were to step in and do something about it directly... tearing off a hangnail on your body hurts everything from your finger to your hand to your arm. Echoes of pain that radiate out from the single sharp pull of flesh and dead skin. Well, think about that for a minute on a cosmic level. He can't pull his own hangnails. Because doing so would cause catastrophe on a level that He's not willing to risk."

John Constantine has posed:
"I mightn't notice a single cell going missing, no," John answers, "But then, I never claimed to be the all-knowing, all-seeing He-Who-Is-Called-I-Am."

The hurtling through space is a very new experience for John, but then he dropped the bad acid at Woodstock because he was a stupid teenager - it's all relatively. He tries to just go with it, keeping up with the conversation as best he can.

"So, God can't act on these things because He's too powerful to interact with something as small as a single universe. Right. Get that. So, He sends Michael who, twat that he is, tries to solve the problem in the most addle-pated fuck-witted way he can think of. Fine, get that too."

John gestures to Meggan, then back to himself.

"We need to talk to Him. Because his proxy's fucking up and He needs to know."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Hurtling them into space at breakneck speeds that would exceed even a starship isn't lost on Meggan. Her instinctive response is reaching out for John -- and the hand not holding that spark of radiant something he plucked from Michael. An anchoring point. Touch won't last long, just enough to confirm he is still there.

"He cannot fix the problem if He doesn't know about its magnitude." She frowns a bit, giving Suriel a pained look. "A small wound mayn't seem that significant, except infection sets in. Bit of a problem for the webwork, you reckon? One little flaw eventually leads to sepsis and kills the body."

Starlight fades into the darkened dance of the spaces between the stars, immense beyond comprehension, streaming into the light fantastic of the Orion Arm. "Seems the beings that became victims of Michael's actions aren't on speaking terms with God right now. We have no wish to see this universe or any other one lopped off. But they were /hurting/ and /suffering/ as it was after Michael's gambit. They still are. What will happen to everyone with what Metatron's about to detonate?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Suriel snaps her fingers and points to Meggan. "Now you're thinking with portals" she says with delight. "I wouldn't think the Voice's action are actually going to come to pass. There are ways around it. But the threat still remains. Shuffling Michael to the world of dreams and imagination won't fully stop him. Not really. Just makes his work all the more tedious. And for us beings who have existed since the creation of all that is confined to this universe? He can be patient and still succeed."

    They're passing above the cosmic web that is the building block of all things in the universe. Laniakea spreads out beneath them and still the travel. "I agree with you. He should be made aware of what His first is doing in His stead. But... I don't think you're going to get Him to intervene in the way you want. You can try though. I won't stop you on that front and giving that back" she points to the spark in John's palm, "might just be the key to getting what you want. Worth a shot, right?"

John Constantine has posed:
"I don't want to keep this," John answers, looking at the mote while gripping Meggan's hand tightly, "I didn't take it so I could have great power. That's not my game. I just recognize when you need a bargaining chit because sometimes power is the only thing the gits in charge will listen to."

He listens to Meggan, nodding his head faintly and then turning his attention back to Suriel. The response just earns a click of his tongue against his teeth, blue eyes cat down to look over the strange lands they fly above at impossible speeds.

"I can be persuasive. All I'm asking is to shoot my shot."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Fingers curl around John's hand, rendering them tightly connected across a boundary of simple flesh and bone among endless dust and specks from the endless formation and collapse of places. The great darkness engulfs them, distant specks full of blurred worlds. Meggan goes back to punctuating her lower lip with a pensive weight.

"I've never had the way with words," she admits to the archangel and the magician who probably knows it well. Another little burr in the side of her existence to worry over later. "Bit of a funny thing, what's 'want' when dealing with God? He can embody possibilities not even possible to imagine. Fine by me if a better solution comes up. John will make the shot right. Always the way of it, mortal petitions God and goes forth. If we never try, then we are just as culpable for botching it as Michael was."

A pained arc of a smile tries to hold the light in it, weighed down and ephemeral all at once. "It's the one cell that gets it, the small change that creates a new pattern, right? Sorry. I sound just..." She goes quiet again, looking away. Words. They suck.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Suriel shakes her head. "I get what you're saying, Daughter of Gaea. At least more than you think I am" she replies. "We're almost there. You get to go to a place where not many get to go anymore. At least, not directly as you two are now. It's so exciting!"

    The luminous gates of the Silver City glow on the horizon, drawing closer and closer until they are upon it. Usually Michael stands watch here, but he is nowhere to be seen. In fact the few angels that -are- in evidence, mindless lessers that tend to the day to day tasks of maintenence, move without paying much heed to Suriel and her guests.

    As they approach, a figure -on- the Gates becomes more and more clear. Chas Chandler looks a fraction of the man he was in life. He wears a simple white shirt and trousers, but his hands and feet have merged into the silver and gold filligree of the door that is the Gate of Heaven. He looks up when he sees the three approach and his expression grows ashamed. "John... Meg... what are you doing here?" he asks wearily. He looks like he hasn't slept in months, and likely he hasn't. Being the doorman of Heaven is an eternal job and even in his modified state as a -part- of the door, the human mind needs time to process all that it sees. And right now, he sees all.

John Constantine has posed:
"What does it look like we're doing, you silly old sod," John asks Chas, reaching for his Silk Cuts and lighting up because Heaven doesn't have a 'No Smoking' sign, "We both got blown up and now we're here for our eternal reward. Mine involves Meg and about five odd feet of vacuum hose."

A pause. Then he takes a step closer to more closely examine the Door-That-Is-Chas. He narrows his eyes, touching the place where his hands merge into the gate and looking back towards Suriel.

"Is this really necessary? Can't you - I don't know - undo this?"

Sure, they're here for a reason but he can't just let this continue if there's a way around it. He pats his friend on the shoulder, standing alongside him and letting the white mote of creation float around by itself for a moment.

"Don't worry, Chas mate. We're working on it."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Here, then, was one of two people to show a jot of kindness after a demon's crushing unkindnesses. A certain agony blooms in the mercurial heart on the threshold of the Silver City.

"Come to repay a favour." Meggan gives John a look equal parts mirth to incandescent amusement, shaking her head slightly. "You've been badly missed, you know. Not a day passes without thinking about you." Trailing strands of gold and silver loosely curl around her shoulders. This close to the Gates, the urge to assume an angelic form practically sings through her genetic code, as amorphous as it is.

The smile fades a bit. "Rather wish saying hello didn't involve a temporary promotion."

A tingling sensation dancing through her wrists skirls higher, and she looks up to Chas, running her finger lightly over John's arm in passing. "Don't ever turn your face away from us. You've done nothing that cannot be forgiven. Always there in the end for us, we bloody well are going to be here for you."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas smiles at his old friends. "I wouldn't expect much anything else from you, mates..." Chas says softly to the pair. "And Meg, don't worry... I can't really turn away from you if I tried now. Part of the deal. All my mistakes laid bare, right?" He doesn't look hurt in any way, in point of contrast, he seems well cared for aside from the dark circles under his eyes.

    Suriel shakes her head her expression. "I'm not in the nature of rendering deals moot from those higher in station than myself. It was part of the deal he struck with Michael. Even if he was ignorant of the price, he must now pay it. Until Michael is willing to reclaim his position as doorman and Heavenly bouncer... Francis must stay." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry."

John Constantine has posed:
"Just adding it as another thing to talk to the Manager about," John says with a sigh, reaching into the inner pocket of his coat and looking to Meggan, "I'm turning into a fuckin' celestial Karen here, aren't I?"

From his pocket, John produces what looks like a simple graffiti marker. Why he has it is anyone's guess. He holds it up for a moment, calling for the little white mote to move between him and the tip of the pen. He blows, the slightest fraction of the motes light whispering over to the pen.

He then strides up to the part of the door that is not directly Chas and ... he writes.

JOHN CONSTANTINE WAS HERE

Graffiti on the Gates of Heaven. He couldn't resist.

"We'll be back for you, Chas. But we've gotta talk to the the Almighty first."

That said, he turns to Suriel and shows his palms like a little kid trying to convince an adult they didn't give a new paint job to Daddy's car because his hands are clean.

"Alright. Ready when you are. Lead the way, sunshine."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Graffiti on the gates of Heaven.

At least John didn't write it on /Chas/. The way things go, you never know.

With the endless patience of a woman bound to this yahoo by deed and oath, she gives the glaring ink a steady look. A headshake. No helping the smile that graces her lips, upturned and serene in the brief melody once normalcy remains. Amenadiel or Adriel will no doubt throw a complete fit. A little change never hurt anyone, did it?

Shame, still, is a lodestone spinning the empath's needle true. "Keep your heart full, Chas. Won't be long."

Of course, for a woman that slipped the noose of time and age, is that really a fair statement? She means well.

Her hand seeks John's again to probably keep him from accidentally rewriting reality by accident. His fingers fit neatly against hers.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas glances to the side and looks at the graffiti. "Really? You know... I'm not that surprised. I'll be here waiting. Not much else to do, really. Good luck, my friends. Hope you get waht you came for." His head sags and some of the light fades from his eyes, his attention elsewhere once more.

    Suriel looks at the writing. "You know... they might leave it. If someone with your reputation can get up here? Gives hope to even the most forlorn spirit in the end." She waves a hand and the gate with Chas on it shimmers and fades. "Enter now into the presence of He Who Reigns Above." The light from beyond the gate is blinding to the point where the word hold little meaning. There is a sense of Something there. But form and function can't seem to give It enough weight to truly convey its magnitude. The Presence simply -is- on a level that the mind can't truly understand.

    Suriel gestures to John and Meggan and whispers. "Go on... state your business..." She even adds a grin and a thumbs up to them both. For luck, of course.

John Constantine has posed:
John gives Chas one last look before he steps through the gate and into the blinding white light of eternity. He looks around himself, unable to now perceive anything except himself because. He takes a deep breath, stepping forward and planting his feet at shoulder width apart. He tilts his chin up, he gets that assured look in his eye, and then he speaks.

"Now, listen here, you cunt ... "

Not the most auspicious start.

"We know you can't see what's happening in our little dust-speck of existence, but what is infinitesimally small for you is everything to us. Because your chosen 'proxy' made a fuck-up, he's fixing it by robbing all our universe of free will. He wants a giant, clockwork machine run by God-botherers - You-botherers, I suppose - without a flake of free will. It won't do, mate. Not on your life. We've come too far, pulled ourselves through too much shit to let some golden ponce run the show."

He holds out a hand, revealing the mote of creation which he holds aloft.

"So, I'm coming here with a bargain. You can have this back - this fragment of creation, I don't know what it's part of. I'm guessing it's where Ian Rush stored the ability to store all those goals - in exchange for bringing your angels home and sparing our universe. I know you sent Michael to deal with it, but he's fucked it up. You need to step in or send someone who can."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The Creator awaits within and beyond. With a momentary sidelong look to Suriel, mouthing, "Thank you," Meggan takes that step inward. Her hand steals across her midsection, fingers fanned across the narrowest arc of her waist.

First, her mother. A pang of joy and regret spindled into one there.

Then archangels. Mighty instruments going about their business, causing so much pain in the process. Another sequence of personal failures, there.

Now God.

Once already she divested herself of /self/ to the greater good. In the light of Heaven, she cannot quite push herself all the way to muted transparency again. What makes John himself is two parts defiance to one damn luck. His audacity puts her heart to her throat, a stirring of protectiveness twinned with awareness there's not a whit she can do to safeguard him.

He offers the mote. She breathes out, and tries to coalesce the weight of so many feelings stirred up by a few million people directly impacted by a host of archangels. Borrowed by proxy to Manhattan, steeped in them through Gaea's energies, leylines, and cursed mutation, the goddess does not even try to sort them into respective colours of an emotive spectrum. The iridescent web is offered up in wordless projection, adding to the light, volumes writ in the desperate fight of families to hold together, uncomprehending children plucked from stability, the righteousness of angels, the madness of heroes, the sorrows and wounds from everyone to have been in her proximity. Her own compassion for them, and the trembling, shaking rage of one failure after another.

"They suffer," she murmurs, somewhere in there, caught in the orchestral movements of so damn much finally unsealed in its buckling weight. "They hurt. They cry out for You without an answer. Words will not heal the damage and the pain. He tried with Michael. I showed Your angels the good in people and they would not cease. It's not enough. Mercy, love, and kindness were not enough. /Why/? What can we give that will set things right? Stop this madness of angels?"

Let us live?

Chas Chandler has posed:
    There is no answer from the light. Even though it is clear that words reach the infiniteness of the Presence therin. A sense of considerations hangs there. The mote hovers in midair and then, communication is made. Not words. Words are a mortal concept. What the Presence gives is translated through the mental capacity and transplanted directly into the minds of those before It.

    -THE CARETAKER HAS LOST HIS WAY AND SO YOU COME TO SEEK MY INTERVENTION.-

    A moment that could be eternity transpires in silence. The eternal creature known by names uncountable considers the plea.

    -I WILL HONOR YOUR REQUEST AND APPOINT YOU AS EMISSARY.-

    The mote of light that hangs between them changes, flickering through a myriad of colors before it flies out and settles not before John, but -in- him. The Will of God and purpose of Him graced upon the Laughing Magician, who never asked for it. But this mantle, the mantle of Spectre is never asked for by any who hold it, even so the Will is given.

    -GO FORTH AND DO AS YOU WILL, JOHN CONSTANTINE-

John Constantine has posed:
John opens his mouth to speak, to argue with the pronouncement from the Presence. This isn't what he was looking for. Not at all what he was asking for, either. He lifts a hand to point at the infinite white light before him, only to be silenced by the mote disappearing into his chest.

There is a flash of light, the man that was John Constantine ceases to exist for a moment. In his place is a wash of light not unlike that which already surrounds them. It only lasts a moment before it coalesces into a man-shape once again.

John stands there now, though his skin has taken a silvery-grey hue. His eyes are no longer blue but instead glow white with the same light of the Presence. He still wears his long coat, though it is no longer tan but green - running upwards into a hood that hangs over his face. He pauses for a moment, looking down at his hands and then slowly back up at Meggan.

Then, in the Voice of God, infinitely deep and speaking more into the mind than into the air around him, he says one word:

"... shit ..."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
That's the funny part of it all. Those who ask would be the worst possible choice. Synchronicity cannot dodge the Presence, can it?

Meggan is oathbound to John; more than that, on some levels. Her head whips to the side, body twisting to follow the shift that emanates from a level plain to her sensitive eyes. That startled rounding of her lips gives no warning, the breath knocked out from her lungs.

What has He done?

Exactly what John asked for. Terrifying in a way. Terror being twisted around by flowered vines, each bloom fiercely resilient to the man made so much more than that. Still him. Hopefully, under all that.

She extends her hands to him, and to her credit, they shake just a little. The rest will take a moment to sink in. "I promised to stay with you through this." Magnitudes; promises invoked by the Tuatha de Danaan hold metaphysical weight. Nothing to this, but a small reflection. "Time to make things right. You aren't alone, love."

Her gaze lifts briefly to the light, marking where He is in all that. Who would turn away from that, in awe?

To the green-clad magician, made something more than laughing, the crux of all there is in the multiverse. The smallest of smiles between them. Hope in the dark.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The light of The Presence; the splendor of the Silver City; all of it fades away and John and Meggan are alone back in the endlessness of space between the edge of Creation and the Web of the cosmos.

    John knows the way back--if he wanted to go. That knowledge resides in him. But also does the way back home. The infinite spaces between all the galaxies and all hidden realms are rendered finite in the mind of The Spectre, John Constantine.

    Getting back home would take little time for the pair. Understanding exactly what John has acquired? That would take much, much longer, if it could ever be truly understood. But the path of the Emissary of God's Vengeance will be paved once more.