Owner	Pose
Atrun-Rai	In the shadow of the armored box that has been made of Grand Central Terminal, Atrun-Rai walks the streets of New York City. He has spent much time in the shadowed streets of the Lower East Side, away from the more obvious fields of battle - and here, with the dazzling, red-gold tip of his spear gleaming like a torch flame in the light of the winter sun, he looks out across the island's heart. At distant silhouettes of angels fluttering. Expression grave.
Phoebe Beacon	Here, too, does Phoebe walk. She has no obvious weaponry about her, but was wearing armor beneath her jacket, domino tucked away for now. Her braids were tucked into a wool cap, and she turns the corner of a street with a blank expression, lost in thought, until she sees Atrun-Rai. Her face lights up, there, and she gives a smile to the older mage, and raises her hand in greeting to him.     "Hey, Master Atrun-Rai." she calls out, and picks up her pace a little bit. "Taking a patrol?"
Atrun-Rai	He does not look back from his place on a street corner at which he stopped. "Simply walking the battlements, as they say. Considering the situation as it stands." His lips flatten into a line. "Many things happening in the shadow of this conflict. "
Phoebe Beacon	"Don't I know it." Phoebe replies thoughtfully, and she catches up to him, looking at the angels in the distance. She curls her fingers a moment.     "My experiment worked better than I could have hoped." she mentions, and she pulls a scarf tighter around her shoulders against the chill. "I doubt they'll keep me on as a leader once this business is complete, but for now it's... actually super unnerving to feel like I don't have to turn to anyone rather than having no one to turn to."
Atrun-Rai	"Do not think so poorly of yourself," Atrun-Rai advises his young watchmate. "But I am pleased that your experiment was a success. I know that I have not been present on the field, but I assure you that I have not been idle." Himself, he seems not nearly so bothered by the cold. Odd man. "There is much to fight in the south part of the island that has nothing to do with the angels."
Phoebe Beacon	"... in the south part of Manhattan? Towards the ocean?" Phoebe questions, and she turns an eye to Atrun-Rai in questioning.     She purses her lips a moment,     "What things other than Angels have been on your mind then?"
Atrun-Rai	"The Lower East Side," he explains. "Alphabet City. The Bowery. Where neither SHIELD nor the Legions dwell. I have already encountered things there that should not walk the streets. Cults from both elsewhere and the city itself. They are a distraction that I will deal with. With help. But a particular kind."
Phoebe Beacon	"I see." Phoebe replies thoughtfully, looking back over the streets as she considers, curling her fingers against her outer thighs. She breathes out. "Well. Some night when Jon wwants healing duty on top of everything else he's doing, I'll help in what ways I can." she breathes out.     "I was thinking. Creating those little side-pockets, the sanctums and stuff -- do those sanctums exist outside of 'reality', or do those get dragged down if we lose?"
Atrun-Rai	"It depends on the placement," he replies. Now he finally looks at her. "Mine, for example, will not. But it is not attached to this plane at all, regardless of the universe." He shakes his head, then, rapping the butt spike of his spear upon the pavement. An echo rings out, carrying on into the afternoon quiet. "It will not be a worry. You will succeed. Doctor Sims is practically piled upon with help and advantages from every cosmic direction. You will succeed."
Phoebe Beacon	The metallic echo rings, and Phoebe feels the vibration momentarily in her chest. She does not reach up to scratch at the plate there, not now, but her eyes look warily to the shadows playing against the light to the far end of the blocks.     "... but what if it's not enough?" Phoebe questions. "What if Jon fails in spite of being the Champion, and Michael wins out? *Should* we havea lifeboat? A group that can rehape existens without free will?" she questions, and she wraps her arms around herself, chewing on the inside of her cheek a moment. She already has people in mind that she would set in the lifeboat.     She's not one of them.
Atrun-Rai	"If he falters we will find a new champion." He glances to her, frowning slightly. "I am, always, working in the background. Even time itself can be rewound, if done in certain ways. In the meantime, I have said that I would assist in construction of a casting-house. A sanctum. But I cannot do it myself. I can only advise." Which, of course, begs more questions than it answers. The Atlantean looks back to the distant menace. "But in the meantime. Reality must be preserved. We must ensure that it is."
Phoebe Beacon	"Because of how you died?" Phoebe inquires. It was an innocent sense of curiosity, a desire to know, answering a question.     "... no, I'm talking about a literal lifeboat. If things were to go wrong, if we were to lose, to send a small group who could rebuild somehow. Bright minds, powerful reality shapers and mages. Warriors to protect them. Just a thought. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and that way you're never disappointed." she replies quietly, "just.... trying to think of all angles. All eventualities."
Atrun-Rai	"It is possible, yes." He looks back to her, now, turning fully. "Similar things have been done in history, albeit with lesser stakes." His lips purse a moment. "But I do not know for how long I will be of use to your society. I believe my essence may, in time, prove...incompatible. So I am trying to do what I can in the moment."
Phoebe Beacon	"... incompatable?" Phoebe pauses, and she looks over at Atrun-Rai in alarm. "Why? Why would your essence be incompatable?!" she asks with a moment of incredulity in her voice as she looks up to the Atlantean, looking mixture complexed. She rubs the back of her scarved neck with a glove.
Atrun-Rai	"The angels prosecute a war that I understand," he replies. "As I, too, came from a society formed by angelic guidance. In part, at least. Among my sorceries, I have great access to magics that could annihilate angels. But Jonathan grows more intent on nonviolence. I /poisoned/ the angels, you see. By polluting their grace with the energy of the Void. I did this without moral compunction because it was what was had to be done. Jonathan agonizes over harming the girl, Caitlin, with a simple ray of that energy. How would he have felt if I vomited the gray flame of emptiness upon her? It was why I kept nonviolent. I could do horrible things. But I do not." He glances between the angels and her face. "But that does not mean such horrible things should not be done."
Phoebe Beacon	"Which I thank you for. That probably let me capture a Virtue." Phoebe replies, rubbing the back of her neck again, and she frowns.     "I don't want to hurt Caitlin either. She's beloved of one of my friends, Diana. She's one of the Amazons, something I once wanted to be." Phoebe states with some level of forlon timbre, and she breathes out.     "I don't know how to explain to Jon about the agony that what I did is causing." she murmured quietly, and she breathes out.
Atrun-Rai	"I'm not sure he realizes, either, that for all his worrying about dying for a cause, I've done it twice now, as of the encounter with Mikha'el." Is that what happened to him? "Being a chosen being is not an easy mark. But I hope his friends will step forward and ease him. Prophets can be ruined by ego as much as anything else." He pauses. "This probably sounds poisonous as well. I do not mean it to. I simply see tht he and I will likely come to a falling out in future. Our methods diverge, if not the goal."     That said, he looks to her. "Can the pain be lessened? My magics of healing will pollute you, I am afraid. Can we go to another healer, perhaps? Or draw out the captured essence into a solidified form?"
Phoebe Beacon	"No, the markings I had to place." Phoebe admits. "My healing powers affect me first and foremost, the agony is mine. I chose it, because all magic should have a cost." Phoebe states quietly. "Sara now holds a small amount of Celestial energy, but I hold the vast majority in me. And I can *use* it, but if I use it, it may destroy the angel whose essence it belongs to." Phoebe keeps her expression as neutral as she can. It's a lot for a teenager.     "I'm just tired of all the hurting. And finding out things that should have been communicated beforehand." She turns to Atrun-Rai.     "The /goal/ is the preservation of our existence. No less. If that cannot be accomplished, then what's the point of any of it?"
Atrun-Rai	"Then allow me to say this to you, and be truthful." He turns toward her now, squinting faintly at the girl, the spear in his hand like a staff once more, resting on its spike. "I represent the Old Ones in this affair. Not a 'champion' with a capital 'C', of course, but more...an agent. One who is, except for whether I exist or not bound to Their whim, autonomous. I am not evil, of course, I could not be in order to be used as They desire, but I am ruthless. The Lords of the Void do not want this reality to end, either - so, they decanted me in this body, thousands of years after my death at their hands, to help preserve reality. This is why I am what I am. When I say I cannot help, that it would pollute you, it is not simply 'how I died', but 'how I have returned.' A faint smile. "I know very well what emptiness is, you see. The horror of oblivion. The death of reality. And so the point, then, is to rail against it. The struggle. If the goal cannot, in the end, be achieved, let history know us by our fight."     He does not reach for her, now. His dark eyes settle on her, waiting for a reaction to this revelation. But he has, at least, spoken the truth out loud to someone.
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe is quiet for a moment, contemplative as she tilts her head to the side, listening with an open mind to Atrun-Rai. She taps her fingers against her arm a moment, over the scarring, burning, itching skin kept agonized by pins. Her dark eyes settle on Atrun-Rai, as if trying to descern if he is speaking Truth or Madness, and releases a breath she wasn't aware she was holding.     "Then, I'm glad I'm your friend adn not your enemy. Even though we're kinda opposite."     "... not gonna lie though, that's... that's a lot to process on a street in New York City, Atrun-Rai." she wraps her arms around herself again, and looks out to the street.     "I joked that I was made a leader because I was the closest thing they had to a spare Constantine. See, I was trained by him -- kinda. There was an animated... flesh golem? Meat puppet? He made it out of spare parts." she explains. "Five months of intense magical study, putting theory to test in the field as it were. I viewed him as a teacher, and friend... and father. More than I do even Chas. I still do. Then the real John Constantine re-appeared, and it got explained to me that what I thought was my parent, and defender, was nothing but a demon-infested, rotting Thing. And I lost him."     She quietly looks to the angels. "I can't accept that Chas was the cause of this. That he called this down by accident. I would rip myself to pieces if I thought it would return Chas to my little sister, his /actual/ daughter. I know nothing waits for the faithless at the end of the road I travel."
Atrun-Rai	"Opposite doesn't mean incompatible." He turns his face upward to the sky, then, and a deep sigh escapes him as he stares at its leaden canopy. "Life is a cruel thing, operated by an absentee engineer. But it is also glorious." A deep sigh escapes him. "I lied at a time that was glorious. I died, horribly, trying to help save it. I did not ask to return. It was forced upon me, as your fate has been forced upon you. But. We must struggle. We must fight till the end, sister, until such time as there is nothing else to fight for. Our reward is that we were ever allowed to fight at all." Another sigh. "That sounds grim, I know. But in the end, the goal is ever always secondary to the journey."     That said, Atrun-Rai turns his face to Phoebe, to reality. "As for myself. I am sorry for the deception prosecuted upon you, Phoebe. All the better you know about me. I am no demon animating meat, merely a dead man who was brought back to life by creatures from another dimension - as my substance is, too, from that dimension. That is why your light will harm me, not heal. Just as my restorative magics would do horrible things to you. But. As I said. Opposites need not be incompatible." He gives her a faint smile, now. Warm. "We may be friends still, yes?"
Phoebe Beacon	"I... did just mention that I still had parental love for a literal demon manifestation and would rip myself apart to save someone else, Atrun-Rai. Pretty sure we can still be friends, regardless of other circumstance." Phoebe gives a wry smile back to him, and she shrugs. "I accept that you speak the Truth. That your path was set before you and you were told to walk." she leans against the wall then.     "I don't know if when I release these energies, they will reform. I can use them as they are, now, with the energy to try and work my connection to the Light to be greater. Maybe even get to a level where I can fight the angels on more level footing, but Jon is... not going to agree to that. Barely agreed to this."
Atrun-Rai	"Good that our lives are not all governed by one man, then," he points out. "Chosen One or no. Good afternoon, Phoebe. I have things to look into." A nod, a polite smile, and the Atlantean walks off down the street, turning the corner to head southward...