8670/Path of Glory: The Work of Heroes

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Path of Glory: The Work of Heroes
Date of Scene: 11 December 2021
Location: Hell's Kitchen
Synopsis: The confrontation with the Papal Killer (discovered the be a possessed Chas Chandler) ends with a massive combat/binding that leaves the outside of the Laughing Magician in shambles and Chas wrapped in the energy from a dimension that should not be touched. There are still questions to be answered. Who is in Chas? Why were they doing what they were doing? And, most importantly, how do you get the thing out of the reliable bartender?
Cast of Characters: Chas Chandler, Hope Svelgate, Meggan Puceanu, John Constantine, Zatanna Zatara, Phoebe Beacon, Sara Pezzini, Jonathan Sims, Asariel, Rien D'Arqueness, Cael Becker
Tinyplot: Path of Glory


Chas Chandler has posed:
    The slience of Hell's Kitchen (since it was silent most nights since the murders began in earnest) is split by an ear splitting roar. Outside the Laughing Magician the concrete of street and sidewalk are obliterated as a comet of blue, white, and gold light slams into the ground with destructive force. A crater the size of an SUV now mars the already pot-holed street in front of the bar.

    Surprisingly something rises from the crater. A being of light with six wings pocked with eyes and burning like the sun brushes dust and dirt from its form. "Impressive as before, Great Lady. But as you see. I'm still here. You have more I hope? I would shudder to think that your skills and legendary prowess are overstated..." he calls to the sky from whence he came hurtling to the ground.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Alighting downward to float in the sky above the crater, wreathed in the fiery blue mystic power of the Energy Arcane, is Lady Death. Her long bone white hair blows freely in the wind behind her. On her face is the grin of one caught up in the madness of battle. She's /enjoying/ herself. In one hand she carries the Chaos-forged blade Apocalypse, shimmering with an orange-red glow of Chaos energy. Her other hand holds Scynister, her rune-forged Uru metal Asgardian blade in the form of a scythe, alight with that same fiery blue glow of the Energy Arcane.

"Good! WONDERFUL!" She throws her head back laughing. "I was hoping you wouldn't break too quickly!"

Even as the words leave her mouth the White Witch drops out of the sky in a full on dive, actually accelerating, as she lunges to impale the impale the Angel on Apocalypse intent on nailing it back into the bottom of the crater like a pinned butterfly.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The six-winged angel takes shape before them in grandiose form, reality bleeding a little around the edges to accommodate a living missile.

"Bollocks." Swearing in front of Lady Death feels entirely incorrect when the imposing white-haired Hell Lord prefers more elegant threats. Meggan permits herself that much of a muttered commentary, shifting herself in front of John even though the likes of Constantine have faced equal or worse. "Throne? You figure it's a Dominion or straight up holy-holy-holying all day long? Yapping the Trisagion's got to get dull awful quick." Shrugging off the trenchcoat in a scrunched roll of her shoulders, she slides it down her arms. "You need this or want me to keep its attention on me and off you?"

Plans fabricated by the Archivist may not be fully in tatters, but they need some modifications. Her gaze stays steady and green as Jon and Sara rush off, a silent prayer of luck for them. "Tell me how much time you need bought and consider it done." Another clash of the two celestial juggernauts would be satisfying if there weren't so many souls in the area, civilians she can feel. "Pity we can't watch the face-off, it's better than telly /or/ the hysterics of Man United and Juventas." His coat's offered, in case he needs it. If not... well, time to go bouncing into trouble.

John Constantine has posed:
"Give it," John murmurs, reaching out towards Meggan and the long coat, "Best to look the part when I'm saving the day, right?"

Receiving the coat, he shrugs it back over his shoulders and pats the pockets down. A moment later he draws out a small leatherbound book the size of his palm, flicking through the pages as he squints towards the glowing light that is the angel.

"Okay, right," he mutters as he finds the page he's looking for, prodding it with one finger, "Found it. An oldie but a goodie."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The last time Zatanna had felt the ground tremble under her feet as it did just now was during an 8.1 earthquake in the mountains of Turkey. The body has a limbic response to the earth moving like liquid underfoot.The chaos of magic blown into the street fills the room invasively. Heart racing, the magician fights the physical reaction and focuses on not hyperventilating.

Light so bright she can barely stand to look at it seeps around the edge of the bar door blown open by something impacting on the other side. All her instincts tell her not to look, but the magician knows she must since receiving the call that brought her to the bar. Then, she hears a familiar laugh. Fear provoking laughter if you are the target.

"Phoebe, you feel it don't you? Lady Death and that thing." She won't call it an angel.

Palm outward, a light shimmers from the homo magi's hand, "!su draW". The gesture encompasses both Phoebe and herself.

Then, she opens the door to go out on the street.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe had been in the Laughing Magician, doing her cleaning tasks (because it was nice to do the mindless stuff like rolling silverware and prepping the fruit to music in her earbuds, when she stopped. Her head tilted a moment, the hair rising up on the back of her neck, when the call had come through. A lime was left half-cut on the counter, a rushed grab of her knives and the leather 'Go' pack she stashed under the bar, perfectly timed for the door to blow open and she drew her fingers accross her wrist, pulling away the leather strap that hid the white circular tattoo that helped her hide her omnipresent aura of The Light and stuffed it into her pocket.

    Z's appearance was just confirming it, and the young student looks up to Zee speachlessly and gives a nod. She knew she was going to be on Team Defense -- with her healing power, and her shielding, she should be able to withstand a couple attacks. Could buy the casters time.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The being of Light Eternal smiles at the Lady peregrining down upon it. It raises a hand, a simple gesture of *STOP* at the stabbing blade of Apocalypse. As the sword impacts the hand there is a blast of energies meeting: unstoppable force vs immovable object. The crater digs a bit deeper into the earth and more dust rises.

    As the debris clears what is there is something that should not be. Gone is the radiant energy and feathery immaculance of the angel.

    Instead stands a man of great height, and solid build. His dark hair is pulled back in a cord at the base of his neck. He wears grey turtleneck, black jeans, and sturdy boots. His eyes still retain that golden glow, the energy of Creation boiling and bubbling in the sockets. But he is otherwise unchanged. Chas Chander's form is holding off one of the most impressive creatures in existence *with only his hand.*

    "A fine blade, quite formidable. Enough to destroy the glamour of my disguise even" he says, in Chas' voice. "But your skill with it is somewhat lacking. Have you been practicing?"

Hope Svelgate has posed:
The Hellborn Valkyries expression twists in frustration, before spreading into an even more maniacal grin. The Energy Arcane around her intensifies, flowing off of her in waves as bits of broken concrete and twisted metal debris begin to float in the air around the crater. "Yes! YES! This is how it should be!

She lunges backward into the air above the crater and in the same motion hurls her scythe spinning towards the vision of Chas standing in the crater. As it flies, guided towards its target by the Energy Arcane, flames explode from the blade engulfing it in raw Hellfire.

Collateral damage? Not even an after thought. Lady Death has become too lost in the thrill of battle against a truly formidable opponent.

"I will enjoy watching you bleed!"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The simmering light dying away to reveal the Laughing Magician's bartender is almost a horror to behold. Chas' kind face and form used in such a fashion give Meggan a moment of horrified, fascinated pause. Pinprick sensations of magic hammer on her with increasing force where the angel and Lady Death waltz, Zatanna calling up her ward a comparatively welcome ripple. When the blade halts in mid-flight, not impacting the angel-Chas' chest, the blonde empath takes in the only breath she might on this sorrowful December night.

The battered earth around her might start to shudder in sympathy, the air possibly turning to the distress of its prodigal daughter. She looks back over her shoulder, telling John sotto voce, "That's him. Puppeted or occupied, I don't know."

Screening the exorcist on a direct path for the crater, Meggan holds up her hand in a wait gesture for Zatanna if the magician can be seen. She tugs on the knot of the red tie about her neck. It comes free, and she tosses the crimson serpent of fabric airborne and the woman is gone. Wind to pull one way, trickery to be played another.

Moments later is a girl in totally different clothes, looking wide-eyed and fraught, her smooth brown hair blown around her. "Dad?" Geraldine Chandler is far too young for the nightmare Hell's Kitchen has become. "I..!" Her teeth worry her lower lip, and she looks ready to cry. Because honestly she is. Skirting around battered vehicles, potholes, she wanders lost closer to that crater, bit by bit. "O, Dad... Please, we need your help. To fight this one. Please...?"

John Constantine has posed:
"Always some surprise under another," John groans, reading the book but keeping an eye on the man at the same time, "Can't remember the last time one of these ethereal cunts was what he said he was."

He sighs, frowning deeply: "Chas, you soddin' idiot - "

But no, time to show the game face. A smirk crosses his features and he holds the book up.

"Anyway, here comes the magic words. Zee, if you care to dance ... "

At that point he begins to read aloud the words of binding and banishment.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The magician walks out into a maelstrom of magic, witnessing Lady Death's sword explode into light. She throws up a hand to cover her eyes from the ensuing explosion. Then, blinking against the after images, a dark form surrounded by a halo of light resolves into someone too familiar for belief.

"NO. Not possible," she judges on an indrawn breath.

Lady Death's scythe whistles through the air, the strike, throwing debris toward them while hellfire lights the street.

"Phoebe, it's not him. It can't be. Don't believe it."

She feels their presence first, then sees John and Meggan on the edge of the crater opposite her. That command to wait stills Zatanna; she glances backward at Phoebe.

It's against her nature to let a child walk near a being as powerful as inhabits the crater. Hands knotted into fists, she lets Meggan do her magic.

Smiling without humor, "Righto, John. Shall we dance?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe comes out, tailing Zee and receiving the ward, her eyes going wide at the raw destruction, and then at the source of it, sneakers skidding on the pavement as she ducks a crosswalk sign. She's brought her arm up over her eyes, braids fluttering in the force of the malestrom around them.

     "No ... no no *no no NO*--" escapes Phoebe in a hiss, and she lights up her palms, and Zee's call *barely* stops her from rushing forward in directly into the fray.

    She breathes out. She turns to Zee, and to John, and then from her sleeve she retrieves her second most trusted piece of equipment -- an extending staff.

    "I am going to have so many nightmares about this --" she mutters.

    While Meggan tries to trick the Angel-possessed Chas -- she gives her the chance. Instead, the teenager boosts herself into the air and flicks out the staff, using it to flick flotsam away from the casters.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The arcing slice of the scythe it caught by the other hand and something *odd* happens. There is a a flash of redish light meeting gold and blood wells up from the palm around the sycthe blade. "That's more like it!" the angel says triumphantly with a smile that is far too much like Chas' own. "We will have our dance, but I can't neglect our other guests" he says as two copies spin out from the main form of Chas holding off Lady Death.

    They are identical in everyway, even down to a line of red on the left palm that drips steadily with blood. One moves on the form of Geraldine and there is a moment's hesitation. "I clever trick to use the child against my host's sentiments..." the figure says and then he simply conjures a sword of living flame from nothingness and strikes down at the child before him.

    The other turns to move on Phoebe. "Child of Light, I have watched you from the shadows for some time" he says, as he raises a hand and fires a blast of white energy at her. "I am curious to see how much of Those That Came After you truly hold."

    Lady Death, for her part is not ignored. The eyes of the being before her grow brighter and brighter and two beams of heat that could possibly match the heat of stars burst forth towards the Lady moving beyond his melee range.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
"So you do bleed! Now fucking DIE!"

Lady Death wrenches the scythe, attempting to pull it back not with her hands but the Energy Arcane itself like a third unseen invisible hand, and not in a way likely to be terribly pleasant for someone holding on to it.

It is an open question if the presence of the bystanders even registers for her. More Angels registers though, more targets, as she seeks to vent centuries of pent up animousity at the religion that failed her upon this creature.

When the golden eye lasers burst forth, she doesn't seem inclined to test her own invulnerability against them. She's survived too many battles to be quite that reckless, instead shooting straight up higher into the air and out of their path.

"Oh good! You are going to fight back! It's no fun if you don't!"

As she goes, the glow around Apocalypse intensifies as she floats there in the air, the aura turning into an angry malignant red as raw Chaos energy is drawn from the Ends of Infinity, the primordial soup that existed before creation. The energies around the blade itself emanating outward until it looks like a weapon far larger than it actually is as she gathers more and more power around it.

At street level the chill wind picks up and intensifies, as dark clouds seem to start gathering above. Looks like there is a storm coming. Some might argue the storm is already here.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
She's got the angel's attention. Geraldine puts her hands together, halting when a copy of her father turns to her. She swallows, the doubled image of him reflected in her wet eyes. "I know You can hear me. You are watching," she says, hasty then hesitating, struggling and then certain. "No matter what, I'm still Your child and You are Dad."

A doublet, there, an uncanny and unkind. Yes, Geraldine is Chas' daughter, but so too is she (Geraldine, Meggan, all here) singing as a child to the Presence behind the universe. Living flame takes shape bleeding fast, ripping up into being in the second Chas' hand. <<Ar n-Athair ata ar neamh.>> Where his little girl would scramble away screaming or stand there gawping under different circumstances, a different roll of the dice comes up. She shifts at great speed to escape the swing of the blade, springing sidelong to stay out of harm's reach and intuitively weaving back to cross against the anticipated counter.

Lastborn daughter of Gaea calls out to the living flames to repel them away from her in the guise of a prayer brought by the earliest emissaries to that wild shore on the edge of the world. <<Go naofar d'ainim. Agus maith duinn ar bhfiacha.>> Feet spring across the wrecked concrete, concentrated on unpredictable patterns in a defensive arc. She feels for that place beyond her native realm, the boundaries where the immense wellspring of personal energy reaches further and crashes to find the uttermost realm. How hard is it to tap? Only one way to know. For a moment, she revels in the storm that lifts her feet and John and Zatanna's craftsmanship behind her. Light on the rim of their working is there, holding back the fear.

<<Mar a mhaithimidne dar bhfeichuina fein. Agus na lig sinn i gcathu.>> The old Gaelic lilt spills spill out, the final notes accompanying the prayer to drop the flood gates to the Nullspace. <<You. As above, so below.>>

John Constantine has posed:
John himself is not a repository of magical power. He wasn't born part of an ancient, magical lineage nor imbued with it by a talking helmet. No, his strength is stolen for lack of a better word. He reaches out, pulling on the strings wherever he can - whether it be given or taken - and begins to weave them together. He relies on Zatanna to provide the brunt. He can provide the cunning.

He reads from the book. Ancient words scribbled in Enochian, the language of angels. Words to abjure, to banish, and bind. The long coat he wears is caught by invisible winds, fluttering it about himself as he winces against the rush of vicious weapons through the air.

"Make sure you don't cut his bloody head off, you mad tart," he calls out to Lady Death, deference be damned, "Not gonna stick back on all that easy if he's the real McCoy!"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"No, child!" Zatanna knows Phoebe's power. Yet this thing using Chas in its guise holds the power of creation in its thrall. Hand over her head; teeth gritted, she doubles the ward around Phoebe as the young magician rises above them.

Zee brings her gaze down to lock eyes with John and nods. The creature multiplies, dangerous eyes darting death at the Lady who rules the realm.

A cold wind ruffles Zee's raven-black hair, tinted ruby from raw power siphoned from the edge of the Void. With a gesture, she creates a glowing link between John and herself.

The power of Meggan's prayers lofts Geraldine, and is channeled to Zatanna, its puissance boiling in her blood. Limned in light the magician chants.

".ereht uoy dnib dna noitaerc erofeb diov eht ot uoy hsinab ,su gnoma ecneserp ruoy erujba eW". (We abjure your presence among us, banish you to the Void before creation, and bind you there.) Hurling the magic at the multiple figures.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe tries to keep any of the items cast into the air from Zee and John, swiping newspapers, bags, pieces of broken gravel and street tar away from them. She tries not to see the sword of blame come down on her little sister. She'll have nightmares. So many nightmares -- and she turns, grabbing a length of plastic as it swoops towards Zee with the end of her staff -- and then Chas addresses her.

    Child of Light, indeed.

    She turns, and she brings her left hand up as he speaks, and her own shield snaps up. She braces herself against the bench, and as the blast strikes she hears it crack, feels it push against the shield, smouldering against the two forms of brilliance as her voice rings like the sound of struck copper over the battlefield:

    "Exolvo mi, da mihi lumen!" (Release me, grant me light!). At the end of the moment, her eight pointed star of juxtaposed squares, surrounded by Heiratic script in perfect caligraphy spins lazily before it wanes. Phoebe's skin has coppery-gold light tracing from her fingertips. Her eyes have a dull glow to them, and she grips her staff. That horribly ordinary staff. Probably the second or third one she's gotten from Red Robin.

    "If you've watched me only from the shadows," she braces "then you don't know what I'm capable of." she breathes out -- but at Zee's bidding she doesn't pursue. She feels the pull from John's end on hers, and with her aura unbound she gives to it, drawing down, feeding both into the wards around her and the magic Zee and John are working.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The first Chas smiles up at the retreating figure of Lady Death taking to the sky and with an almost super hero-like poise launches himself into the air after her. His own speed far surpasses that of the man he inhabits and a blade of sparling white fire is conjured as he chases after her. "Too slow" he says, as he closes distance with her his own sword ready to rend her flesh and bone alike should it connect.

    The one before Geraldine is jerked by some unseen force (Meggan's own plea heeded by the flame conjured) and the strike misses, the blade slamming into the concrete of the road and melting it like butter against an open flame. Then a flicker of concern springs into the eyes of the being as it seems to realize that the true threat lies in John and Zatanna's working.

    "I know what your father knows..." the being says as it draws closer to the Light-infused young woman. "For I am he, after all." He holds out a hand and a mace of silver-white energy forms in the hand. He brings it down on her shield with the a force that could move mountains if asked. "Face me fully if you feel your power is anything in comparison to that which My Father compelled into being at the start of all things."

Hope Svelgate has posed:
To assume the Battle Lust of the White Witch means she is just another unthinking berserk would be a grave mistake. Lady Death is a cunning tactician, one who has lead armies to victory in countless battles, and also one who has no hangups about honor or fair play. Her retreat skyward was never truly about running away. It was a trap, and now as Angel-Chas chases after her that trap is sprung!

As the Angel lunges for her in the sky with his own sword, Lady Death holds Apocalypse high above her head as the Angel comes and up above amidst those gathering dark clouds light begins to flash.

"Dod fran himlen!" She shouts the words of the incantation like a venomous curse.

As she does a massive bolt of lightning comes crashing down upon her sword. As it does she swings the blade completely lit up with Chaos Energy and now a massive bolt of Energy Arcane infused lightning down upon the Angel and his sword as it strikes for her.

That isn't the real trap though, a simple show of power would not inspire the tales of the White Witch's cunning. No, even as this conflagration of power is unleashed, from a blind angle her scythe comes spinning, aglow with Hellfire, guided by that unseen mystical hand toward the Angel's back.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
A whisper breaks lips already sheened incarnadine from blood and mana, lost in the cutting light whipped up in the tremendous cyclone of Energy Arcane and the light. "For He so loved the world." Geraldine does not bow but sinks, her hands spread out in front of her as a supplicant. Her soft voice has the same Merseyside accent of father and erstwhile god-sorcerer sort, clinging to that shred of humanity. "That He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish. Help the angel remember its trespasses against /us/..."

His Father is their father too. The angel's words repeat, echoes stitched through the girl's existence as she phases herself through existence by way of the Astral to that terrible Beyond.

Older, crueller forces than generally bombard the Earth pass through the fulcrum of outstretched hands and bowed head. For this sacrifice was made; the spill of blood and the shed tears mixing on asphalt and cold earth. Twin opposing forces find one another: magic, unreality. She discharges raw magical energy like an unstable blue giant star throwing off its outer layers. At most she can direct it backward to Zatanna, Phoebe, and John in a tsunami stained by her Otherworldly origins.

Little consolation for the wracked shriek torn from her throat as space around her distorts, an irregular blob full of eye-bending constructs seen through a lens most darkly. The mind is better off not trying to comprehend what pours through her flensed skin. Geraldine's cracking body bleeds from under dark lashes and fingernails. Then the shifts begin, slashed sidelong into a black lupine figure of unusual size, eyes flashing impossibly green until the Null sends grey ice crackling over smoldering fur and howling muzzle. The bone-breaking shudders are tremendous, arcing her into a rictus of torment or bending her to let go.

Wild, furious, laughing, screaming, sobbing. She collapses a being more of inchoate shadow, tendrils shot by the pervasive aurora, pulsing in plasmic skeins. Woman is monster is unmade is antlered beast is hag is rusalka is sidhe is--is--is-- What flows through her is spun into an irregular, rapidly oscillating blob comparable to the destructive, collapsing point left when the starlight evaporates. A gateway where none should exist, shielded against the conflagration of angelic contempt or Lady Death's own formidable machinations by antithesis of what made reality.

John Constantine has posed:
"Adrpan Lonshi!" John calls in Enochian, clutching the book as the violent wind threatens to rip it from his hand, "Adrpan Lonshi! Yolcam olpirt iaid!"

As the Chas-thing wheels around on Phoebe, Constantine moves swiftly to position himself in front of her. He doesn't spare her a glance, instead leveling his full gaze at the threatening figure. His shoulders square, coat flaring around him as he grabs onto the threads of power ambient around him and begins to spin them into the creature's own noose.

"You're not Chas, mate," he sneers, the energy coursing through him enough to ignite within his veins and pierce outward through blistering flesh, "If he could split into three he wouldn't be drivin' a fuckin' cab or tendin' bar. He'd be doin' both."

And, for good measure, he hurls the banishing words at him once more: "ADRPAN LONSHI!"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Death is wily; she has eons of battle lore at her fingertips. Head thrown back, Zee watches the battle on high, keeping a wary eye on the one facing Meggan and turning toward Phoebe.

The seams of reality split, and inchoate power spills into a New York street. Blood stains Chas's child as a conduit to the power of a thousand suns is channeled to both John and the homo magi.

John stepping in front of Phoebe allows Zatanna time to redouble his words, ".noitaerC erofeb dioV eht ot kcab oG .uoy hsinab eW .ereh gnoleb ton od uoY" (You do not belong here. We banish you. Go back to the Void before Creation.)

In the distortions that flicker across the street, every word spoken takes on a life of its own to wrap around the Angel's neck and tighten. Zee staggers slightly as she turns her head to watch Phoebe and John.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There is just one phrase that comes across Phoebe's mind as she formulates her plan of attack. That phrase is 'this is going to suuuuuuck'.

    "Lucki--" but she never gets to finish her statement. Chas manifests a massive mace and brings it down on her shield. She feels, and hears, the magic ring in her blood and in her eardrums, feeling the pressure as she keeps her hands up. Both hands now have circles on the back, concentric and etched in copper-gold as she braces for the next blow. She could fight him, unemcumbered, but there's the sound of a trenchcoat in the storm that has hit the streets, the familiar form.

    THere's a choked word, short, whether meant for Chas or John it would be hard to say, but she keeps her breaking shield up, and then brings her hand down. Picture the binding. The strands of her light that wrap around her, orbiting, woven to the spell as well. The tattoo at her wrist glows brilliant white against the copper and gold.

    When she speaks, it's in Egyptian, the language of her ancestors. Return from whence you came and release the one whom you have captured. she speaks, putting all her Willpower into the command.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The Sword of Chaos Infused Energy Arcane meets Pulsar-quality plasma of Creation and the night is turned to day with a brilliant flash as powers vie for dominance. But Lady Death's trap was already sprung and the being didn't anticipate a second retort from the scythe. The curved blade buries itself in the being's back and light erupts from the wound as he arches back in agony. A scream that is all too human rips from his throat as he starts to plumet from the height. The sword simply vanishes out of existence as it falls from his fingers and he continues to freefall.

    As Meggan rips into the fabric of a realm that should not be, the creature's from reels away from the tendrils of Negative Energy erupting from her presence--or is it lack thereof at this point? It stumbles and writhes as the energy is absolute anathema to it's own lashes and bubbles out from in a ichorous torrent. The form falling from above lands on it and merges into it, the cut of Hellfire erupting in a torent of red flame on its back as it continues to writhe and fight against its demise.

    The being laughs triumphantly as it destroyed Phoebe's shield but is then face to face with what its host would call Brother. Words of power spill from his own lips and Zatanna's lips in kind, wrapping him in chains and ropes that bind. They struggle to find purchase until the flailing double stumbles and crashes into it's source. The three becoming one once more seems to make the spells being wound all the more real (or is it Unreal with the addition of the Nullspace energy?) as chains and ropes all wrap and bind the being in place. A scream of thousands of voices tears out of the form in a deafaning rush of terror, rage, and pain.

    Without warning space folds *in* on itself. Darkness engulfing all in dilapidated building that was Cael's prison and all on the street in Hell's Kitchen. There is no sound. There is no sight. Just utter darkness. An emptiness that speaks of terror and the end of all things. It's brief but for that instant, the universe ends. Then just as quickly it is rebuilt and both parties are standing on opposite sides of the street before the Laughing Magician facing a figure that looks like Chas in everything but the eyes. There are burns and cuts across the figure's form and chains of a black that has no true name--more an absence of *existence* rather than a lack of light. "You haven't won... you've only delayed the inevitable..." Then he falls forward onto the broken asphalt the chains of non-existence coiling around him more and more as the orbs of gold close and he stops moving save for the slow labored breathing that marks him as still living.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Lady Death cackles with mad glee and savors the expression on the Angel's face, the look in his eyes as the unseen Hellfire infused scythe buries itself deeply into his back. As his back arches, the pain written across his expression, she leans in close to whisper into his ear "Remember this Angel, you may be powerful, but Death comes for all things in the end and rarely in the way that they expect." Before violently wrenching the scythe free and watching him plummet.

But even still as the Angel plummets, she does not seem wholely content. Too many times has a foe like not truly been felled by the first strike and so she raises Apocalypse high once more calling forth another massive bolt of Energy Arcane infused lighting from the black clouds above, "Dod fran himlen!" Sending it hurling towards the the falling Angel wearing Chas' skin.

After which she slowly descends towards the crater in its wake, hovering in the air as the Universe seems to ends around her. It is quite a sight to behold, the void of Oblivion, one that finds some mirror in the depths of her own soul, the darkest parts long denied scream for a moment. But then everything is back as it was. If the Lady of Death has been left pale from the experience, it is well hidden by the deathly white palor of her skin.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The Laughing Magician has witnessed its completely, utterly unfair share of troubles. Nergal's symbol, crowds and insect swarms, but an angel wearing its bartender's face takes the cake. Meggan is in very little condition to opine about the self-destructing building or the tripled angel collapsing into a single entity for she is manifold in three planes for the unmaking and becoming of creation.

She wrenches free of the unreal fissures wounding the world from where she reached into the unknowable. They only become hands after a point of extraction, at once snapping back into long fingers tipped in ice-rimed claws. Arcane power and the rushing life force of nature held at bay roar in, though a significant portion remains locked up in her oathbindings visible as elaborate knotwork flowing like smoke across pristine alabaster skin. Slowly, so slowly, the Tuath de Danaan rises from her knees. Humanity is a masquerade barely clung to, not with those pointed ears and other features bleeding through. Her shoes are gone, trouser legs crumbling in an escalating sheet as she moves. The button-down shirt survives a bit better, aged but enduring after a brush with ruin. For some very long moments indeed, she stares at what is -- was -- Chas.

Mulberry lips carve a faint smirk, bruised and swollen from the rictus pressure of holding back the soul-shriven pressures. "If not for the aftertaste, I would devour you whole," she tells the unconscious thing. But in that is a beauty etched with the harsh ferocity of event horizons and glaciers, not entirely a different mirror from the Hell-styled Valkyrie. They must use a similar service, the ground immediately flash-freezes where Meggan lands near the crater. Mist and shadows rush inward, rubbing against her ankles like a cat. "Pity for him not to dodge the sword or scythe."

John Constantine has posed:
"This is a bit fuckin' intense, isn't it?" John calls out with a grin, glancing back over his shoulder towards Phoebe, "Er ... Anyway, keep up the goodness an' light, sweetheart - I'm comin' apart at the seams."

It seems like he's not exaggerating, either. The energy rip-roaring through him is of the kind mortals aren't meant to possess let alone wield. For all his mystical knowledge, he's still flesh and blood (albeit the blood is a little weird, but that's another story). His flesh seems to crack like dry mud, light piercing outward only to be covered over again as the healing magic works to keep him whole. The book in his hand has been ignited by the heat, the charred pages still legible as he holds it aloft.

"Yolcam ehnub ror! Yolcam olpirt iaida! MAD! Zacare od adrpan ... err ... fuckin' Chas, hoath drilp!"

When there's no true name forthcoming, go with what you've got. First rule of exorcism club.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Phoebe's power blooms in a fountain of light next to Zee. It blankets the "Nooooo," that shreds Zee's throat, screaming at the mace descending on Phoebe's shield.

Mad laughter indelibly melds with the universe turning inside out. And when it returns, more of the powerful are ranked on the other side of the street. Then Death is among them.

Between Jon and the homo magi chains of non-existence wrap the body of their beloved Chas or whatever inhabits his body.

"Always around you. Fuck," she murmurs, looking at John coming apart at the seams.

P ".diov eht ot uoy hsinab dna thgil eht no llac eW" Suddenly she is on her knees, not remembering the transition at all. (We call on the light and banish you to the void.)

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Back in the dark. Back in the dark before she was rescued, the dark at the edge of her ability to heal, and Phoebe feels her very heart freeze. She reaches out in the darkness, choking on the words in her throat, and trying to summon out her Light.

    She was his Lighthouse, after all. The gloworm. A beacon.

    And then it reverses, and they're back in the street side, her fingers brushing against the edges of John's trenchcoat, with Chas in the street.
    Phoebe looks up at John with a 'no shit, sherlock' expression on her wary face watching as his skin cracks and burns, but if there's one thing she does well, it's healing.

    "Don't freak out," she states, "it's going to tingle." she states, and then she collapses her staff, and summons her fancy stick of light.

    She brings the staff down in a half crouch, and she concentrates on John to try and stop him from physically coming apart at the seams.

    A concentric circle forms below her, stretching out to either side, slowly rotating. Her regular aura could heal over time, but this was a rapid, area-of-affect healing.

    It tingles like a nine-volt battery on your tongue in reverse. Meanwhile, Phoebe's trying to decide if this is going to leave the taste of licking an ashtray like the other one did.

    "Anyone else want a refresher, get real close." she calls out, just in case others can't heal on their own. "Hope you're wearing deoderant."

Sara Pezzini has posed:
The transition through null space is both shocking and startling. One minute Witchblade is struggling to hold the angel in the circle drawn in a room with no windows or doors, the next the entire group is in the streets outside the Laughing Magician.

The heart keeps beating, two, three, four...

From where she appeared, Sara's head turns quickly to gauge what is around her, assess the threat. The tendrils that held the angel have wrapped back into the armor and returned to being wings on her back, though she had no memory of how or when that happened. As her eyes land on Cael, the damage done to her friend and partner, nothing else in the universe existed.

The heart beats... one, two... she is motionless, as if frozen in place, then suddenly everything seems to speed up for her. Closing the the distance between herself and Cael, Sara slides to a stop beside her friend on her armored knees. "Easy Cael," she whispers calmly, soothingly, a tone she has never used before. "We got you."

The power that begins to flow through Witchblade is new to Sara, something she didn't know was possible until that moment. It was Witchblade himself who choose the times and places he revealed what he was capable of doing, and today the power that revealed itself his wielder was beyond anything she believed possible. With his connection to Angelus, she could have suspected it was possible but it never occurred to her.

The right gauntlet of the armor on Sara's body slowly begins to glow in a red-orangish light, pale at first then growing in intensity to a blinding brightness. As the realization of what this means registers in Sara's mind she reaches to hold the gauntlet over Cael's hands. The massive red stone on the back of the gauntlet shimmers and the eye opens to look out at the world as he concentrates the built up energy into healing Cael's hands.

The process is quick and painless, as if Cael's hands were never wounded at all, no scars, no signs of any injury and then Sara is moving to the next major wound.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    For a moment, the universe ends. It's a familiar feeling to the Archivist, even if it terrifies Jon--if for no other reason than it's /comfortable/ to that other side of him. The Archivist channels this power all the time, granted by Ammit, the Eater of Hearts. This is where those souls that the Duat weighs heavier than a feather are sent. The only discomfort in it is because he's Jonathan Sims just now, not the Archivist. This? This is what the Archivist serves, in the end. Even beyond Thoth and Ma'at--this place is Watcher that become the Archivist was created to feed to begin with. All things must end--even angels. And ensuring that is what he's /for/.

    Then they're spat back out onto the street and Jon collapses to his knees in pain and shock, dropping his staff to the ground with a clatter. "Did it work?!" He looks around, spies Chas--or rather, the angel inhabiting Chas' body--bound there. "By the gods... it /worked/." He winces. There's a huge nail through his left shoulder, driven all the way through so it pokes out the back. It's bleeding, but not nearly so badly as the woman who drove the nail in there, directly in front of him. "Need a medic!" he screams. It's not for him.

    "Becker? Becker, stay with me," he gasps, sending comforting thoughts. Not the false comfort the angel offered, but real comfort. They have healers. They'll save her. It'll be okay. He's crying, and he can't seem to stop.

    Then Pezzini's there, and the Witchblade is healing Cael. Jon rocks back on his heels, and reaches up to pull the nail out of his own shoulder. He then focuses his will on summoning a globe of healing water. No better person to practice on than himself, as he encourages the healing process to accelerate, tissue to knit back together, nerves and blood vessels to reconnect. It'll leave a scar, but maybe all the better. He can't leave Cael's side just now to go get the Beacon's healing, though he does send a tired smile over at his friends across the street.

Asariel has posed:
Lasariel's not expecting the Random Reality Shift and the white haired woman hits the ground hard as she tries to find Chas and the others. Can't let an angel of that power just disappear into the aether before he's evicted. If they could evict him. Her eyes glow much like the angels for a moment, but they are losing their brightness as her energy drains. She finally spots where Chas' forms has landed and she tries to gather enough energy to get across to her boyfriend.

Her legs do give out though on the way and there's a really angry Italian that comes along to scoop her up, "Well, this has not been fun, Doctor and I told you your taste in men was still /horrible/." he hisses out.

Lasariel gives him a tired look, "Get possessed by an Angel and tell me how you feel in the morning, Giovanni." she mutters to him before she goes limp in his arms.

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
    Rien shakes her head and rises from the kneeling position she was in. Looking around, she takes in the scene as it currently stands. Constantine's voice catches her attention, and she runs across the street to stand near him. Figuring that it can't hurt to toss a little more power in, she starts chanting a banishing spell as well. Of all her skills, exorcism and banishment are the things she does best, so the words flow from her lips without hesitation.

    She has a number of banishment spells that don't require a True Name since demons so seldom want to share theirs, so she continues to chant, hoping that multiple banishment spells will hammer the angel right the hell out of this existence. Next to what Constantine is doing at the moment it's probably just a trickle, but she throws in the last bit of negative energy she had pulled into herself to give the banishing a little kick.

    Every little bit helps, right?

Cael Becker has posed:
    That momentary blink of oblivion is beyond Cael's comprehension - especially in the moment. For a moment, she thought the end had come after all. Or perhaps she was simply passing out - but then they were somewhere else. She didn't understand it, and in this moment - she doesn't care to.
    Sara speaking her name is something she can understand though, and Cael's gaze lifts towards her, filled with pain, guilt, horror, and despair. She watches as light builds and builds in the gauntlet to a piercing brightness, but she makes no attempt to move, or avoid it. Sara might read it as trust - but Jon was still in her head. He would know it for what it was. Whatever the blinding light meant, in this moment - she felt she deserved it.
    She hadn't expected it to heal her hands. She lets out a quiet gasp, gazing down at the unblemished skin. "Sara..." she says quietly, but she can't form any coherent thoughts at the moment. She isn't sure what to say.
    They'd come for her. That's what she'd hoped for - before the angel worked his way into her brain. That she could hold out long enough to be found, and they had. Even as she realizes this, even as she feels the comfort from Jon, she struggles to accept it.
    Never had she thought she'd attack her friends, on top of all the other horrors she'd expected.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Despite the extra power and the words spoken by a myriad of conjurers, nothing changes to the wounded and VOID chained form of Chas. It seems that whatever is needed to rid this plane of existence of the creature that is inside of him, the answer is not here. Not yet.

    He looks rather peaceful, which probably isn't fair given the pain he's caused. They're going to need to move him, leaving him in the street would invite a whole host of issues. Especialy with the congealed Nullspace energy wrapped around him. The back room of the Laughing Magician might be the best bet simply for proximity and ease of containment. There may be a few in their midsts who could manage it without damaging themselves in the process.