17347/Really

Really
Date of Scene:	05 March 2024
Location:	Robinson Park - Miagani Island
Synopsis:	No more castle issues.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Meggan Puceanu

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John Constantine has posed:
"I still can't believe they named it 'Finger Castle'." John shakes his head as he and Meggan walk towards the large, medieval Scottish structure. "But even worse, I can't believe someone's actually startefd a cult _and_ decided to do their ceremonies in there. Don't they know these old castles are all architecturally designed to channel those powers? Idiots are going to try to summon a lesser demon to do their bidding and end up Satannish's bitches before the night is through. Last thing we need is Bats on our asses because we weren't paying attention to a group of cultists with a horn fetish."

He steps up to one of the wooden side entrances to the castle, and looks at the iron lock on it. "Do you mind, ducky?" He nods at the lock. She's the _strong_ one in the relationship.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Right bonkers name. Who comes up with these things? Ought to be a nicer, friendlier name like 'Stony Castle' or 'Parkview Castle.' Not this nonsense. How they even call that a castle?" Meggan handwaves at the structure in the park, isolated behind trees and lawns that look as drab as anything under the perpetual grey skies. Leaden Gotham daytimes aren't particularly bright or welcoming at the best of times. Her gaze flicks up to the craggy shape. "It's tryin' awful hard. A real castle oughta have a wall fallen down, shouldn't it? Some moss hanging there and here. Atmospheric!" Always positive, with spring approaching, but the faerie queen of Spenser's muddled dreams is more or less given to tramping through wet, mostly dead grass unbothered. She might prefer to float, but that would be a bit telling. "They carry it over stone by stone? Or maybe they assembled it some other way. Like tried to use a photo and got the walls all mucked up. If they did that, they're gonna leak power out the sides or let something out, I suspect."

Her shoulders twitch in the hopes of finding the magical energy around not too snarled, but that's probably a wishful thing. A sigh follows as John rambles up like you please to the door, and she holds out a light globe on her palm to better see... well, it's hard to say what. "Couldn't we just prowl in through a turret? Turrets are nice. Those holes that go to nowhere people get stuck in, not so much, just in case you had that idea as well."

With a solid nudge, she tests to see if the door is even for show or the lock little more than a bit of painted tin. If it decides to resist her, so be it; she gives a solid double-handed shove that probably could tear the hinges right out and open it that way.

John Constantine has posed:
"Stone b'stone, far as I know. Multimillion dollar effort. Least they didn't stick it at the very top of a bloody skyscraper like that lunatic in New York," Constantine says, his hands fiddling with a cigarette as he lights it. He watches his wife shove a door right off its hinges and shrugs. Works for him.

"These morons probably read the castle is good for cult vibes and decided to try it here. Idiots. Come on, I--"

Just then, he's interrupted by a blood curling scream from above.

"Looks like the festivities got started early, luv."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan shakes her head, blonde hair speckled in dust and bits of paint peeled off the inner wooden frame. She isn't exactly the quietest force yanking the door open. "I prefer the Met one. Cloisters. That feels properly done, but here, ugh, no. Oh, and there's some Irish pub over in Staten Island moved there. Better than wasting the energy on a castle that was probably very happy where it was. No one ever gives the place a second thought when it's falling down, but when some Yank billionaire takes a likin' the whole country is for sale."

Wryly she looks to John. "We've become colonized, after centuries as colonizers. Oh, is that the consequences of our actions?"

Her smile widens at that screech, and her eyes flash icy-pale, their green hue bleeding out. Hunter, hunted. The place is a castle. Almost without a thought her fingers sharpen to claws, a good tug on the insubstantial electricity feeding the lights pulled straight out to cut their current. The cherry ember of his cigarette burns all too clear. "What, leaving the lock defeats the purpose."

John Constantine has posed:
John is already running down the hallway, trying to find a way up to where the cultists are, no doubt, being torn limb from limb. Or something equally bad (or worse) is happening. "Come on, you unseelie beauty, y've only got two weeks or so left'a winter, might as well make use of it before you turn wholesome again." He loves making fun of her seasonal moods, but only because she knows it's all with love. He pulls out a pair of glasses that'll let him see in the dark she's created, and starts to head up a flight of spiral steps.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Seeing in the dark might be easy for someone who spontaneously does so, but wearing what looks like swirly glasses is just less than cool. Taking her borrowed lightning with her creates a crackly ozone noise that accompanies the late-winter Tuath as she floats after John. At least he can hear her this way, flitting from space to space and avoiding contact with the stone. Grounding lightning defeats the purpose, even if the electrical sylphs are blue balls discharging a nasty vaporous charge all around. It doesn't want to behave and neither, for that matter, does she.

But getting ahead of herself wouldn't be nice, would it? John has to slog up the stairs whereas she can just float, but shoving back the electrical globes to their furthest reach that she can still safely master, she approaches him and snags him by the arm.

"Any slower, they'll be mummies by the time you get there." Nine months, nine centuries, what's the difference? He won't have to worry about risking his lungs or coughing up whatever because she otherwise intends to sail him up the way and leave him a couple steps short of the top to make a dramatic entrance or such if he lets it happen.

John Constantine has posed:
John hangs from Meggan's arms like a chill cat for a few flights until she sets him down. "Thank you, darling."

And then he tugs at one of the electrical bulbs hovering around her and appropriates it, its color turning a bright crimson as he twists it between his hands with a mutte rand creates a diminutive _ball lightning_.

As far as an entrance, this one is pretty high up there. The ball lightning bursts the door inwards, shattering the wood in a thousand pieces and sending bits all over the room where the cultists are... being eaten. Ew.

At the center of the room, half out of a summoning circle on the floor, a purple-red, puss blistered demon with twisted horns and an overly large mouth is snagging robed men and women and stuffing them into his mouth.

"Shite."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Nothing like relying on the gliders, levitators, and fliers to get around. Really, it's just the best option.

Tremendous satisfaction at watching John do his thing -- one of the reasons she fell in love with him in the first place despite the parade of red flags -- ends up briefly marred by the demon present. "Never get the rhymesr. No, we get gluttony or pestilence." Meggan frowns and gestures helpfully as though to get 'get on with it' to the sylphs floating around. The stolen energy from the wires roars past her and ruffles John's coat, slamming into the demon all around the head and face. Electrified treats might be something that warrants disgust from better members of the Justice League, but not everyone can use laser eyes or laser words. Or even laser pointers.

Disappointment if that thing isn't bothered by electricity is bound to follow. "'Ey, you looking for power?"

They /are/ cultists, after all. What she doesn't know about them can hurt her as she drops the seals around her mana to see if they bite or just tap into that massive battery. Or they try to, anyway.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Cultists. Cultists are bastards, that's for certain, and no one enjoys being caught up in the middle of a stupid-named castle in Gotham being surrounded by sacrificed dupes and their whatever-it's-coming-through friend.

John Constantine has posed:
Meanwhile, John is... trying to figure out who this is. "Berezor? Bentag- no, Benjiinf- no, I know it's a B-E louse because I've got his horns in mind..." Megga can blast and smack and have, in general, a lot of fun at these outings, which is honestly what gives John the chance to figure these things out without that many interruptions. He picks up a piece of rebar and then breaks one of the cultist's kneecaps as he continues thinking, and then... "Belfegor?"

"BELFEGOR!"

The demon pauses, mid-chewing, and turns its pustuled eyes at Constantine.

"Ah, bollocks."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
John's identification of demons is probably par excellence compared to most non-demon people in the world. To heck with sons of Satan or Mephisto's bestie, right up worry about the fellow who has to study this shite to survive.

Meggan makes a rather disgusted noise at the wave of hunger rolling over her; it's a primal emotion but still one, if not adjacent immediately to warped desire. Her skin darkens a hint, slightly bruised lilac, a sympathy unwanted and present all the same. *Blasting* on her part means pulling the voltage out of the wires and hurling it at Be-wots-it repeatedly, and possibly striking a cultist or two just to blow them out of harm's reach.

Shifting between elements isn't hard, but that means pulling the air out of the room to make a breeze and humans like breathing. John breathes. Bad idea.

"Right, bad choices. You might just chuck them back out, you know?"

John Constantine has posed:
"Belfegor, Belfegor, Belfegor --" John says, rolling to the side to avoid a blast of acidity from the demon's exploding pustules as Meggan continues to attempt to fry it with electricity. "No, that's just going to -- Meggan!" John makes a 'throat cutting' gesture. "Ixnay on ockingshay! Belfegor thrives on energy!" John elbows a cultist in the throat and then kicks them to the side, sprinting back towards hsi wife and then dropping low and skidding to a stop behind her.

"Luv, you're just pumping power in'im. We want to yank it out. We want _ice_."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Belfegor, Belfegor, nastiest man in the whole damn store."

The sing-song from the winter-aspect Tuath running hard into spring definitely comes as mockery, no doubt about it. The lightning stops dancing, returned with a jolt to Finger Castle's wiring, and the lights at least can come back on. Air and darkness, though, make for a plentiful array of options nonetheless. "I could just suck it all out, but it's dirty. Infernal tastes the worst."

Her eyes narrow as she swings her arm up, lazily darting away from another rigmarole of goo. Eww, pus. Her physical form fades out into a wavering miasma of freezing air, since dropping into sub-zero temperatures is easiest done when not actually a warm, living body. The air may not like it much, confounded by her mood, but the shift puts her square into 'ball of cold' territory and that much easier to clap her hands together to rip out the warmth in water or anything to be found. Like a big blobby demon. The acid he spits or bursts - ew - soon enough freezes. Frozen bits are wonderful to pelt him with, too.

John Constantine has posed:
John takes the time to conjure up a nice little telekinesis spell he's been saving for just such an occasion. It allows him to pick a vector and send something flying in that direction. Much more 'mind gun' than 'telekinesis', to be fair, but the limited applications make its intensity all the easier to achieve, which means, yeah, he lacks control, but when those ice balls hit, they hit _hard_.

John starts to pelt Belfegor and cultists with the ice shards that Meggan creates to keep them occupied while she works.

"Just a bit more, lover."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Belfegor should be really out of the way by this point, if he was smart. When are demons smart?

Too often, the answer is 'lots' but let's not dwell on that point.

Meggan closes her eyes and breathes out, a torrential gust that doesn't match being little more than cold, condensing mist with ice particles. Proof she can sap the warmth in the air comes from the beads of condensation forming on the floor and across the walls, splattered in fine detail as rivulets emerge from the mortar between the bricks. To quote the inestimable Mel Brooks, she went from suck to blow.

And as far as 'blow' goes, she's damn good at it.

John Constantine has posed:
It doesn't take long. At least, it doesn't take long in mortal time; for Meggan it's probably an etertinity given all the energy she's having to essentially use to _stop energy_. Cold is, after all, the absence of heat. Of course, _magical_ cold can be an energy unto itself, but that's not what they're doing now. All they need to take on Belfegor is the normal frosty ambience of a romantic tundra.

Soon, Belfegor's blackedn red skin has turned purple and he's receding into his hole, crawling back to the depths of whatever metaphorically hot hell he came from.

"L- l-l-l-l-luv, I th- th- think y-y-y-you g-g-got'im," Constantine says, through chattering teeth, as the entire inside of the room they're in has essentially frozen over, and he's got icicles for boogers at this point.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Straight up cold simply means converting what Meggan is from one thing to another. Ice and snow are her season, albeit fadimg, the power that normally comes with snowflakes and blizzards suffering a good bit from the onset of nicer weather, warm and balmy spring blown around by stormy winds. Things to look forward to.

Belfegor probably wishes he had a Miami condo right about now. Maybe a timeshare in Arizona. Somewhere in the Outback? Saharan mudhut. He slips and slimes his way out of the castle while she plays the Winds of Boreas, or Aquilo if one feels particularly Roman.

Until that blast cuts off, and she promptly coughs. Ah, the teeming incidence of icicles may go unnoticed by someone who doesn't exactly *see* the same way others do without obvious eyes when made of mist. She coalesces back into her usual form, her feet slipping on the ice under her and knocking her ass over tea kettle until floating in a heap. Awkward but it is what it is as she immediately starts to heat up the air around her to a nice solid 19'C.