Inside 73: Holiday Rush

[bc56]

Red Hook Pier
Batsael doesn't dignify the comment with a reply, preferring to fire another crystal dart from the window of a nearby building before speaking.
"I promised you I'd kill you, so I will." She's not going to say it's nothing personal, because it's extremely personal. "I need to make an example of you. No floofing body gets in my way."

[Ironsmith]

[Super Gross]

Olympia frowns a little.

How can she be less of a jerk about this?

"If you're serious about wanting to help in the future? First thing a cape has to learn is how to stop their own powers from being a danger to others," Olympia points out. "Like I can't just cut loose with my big attacks if there's anyone nearby. It'll cause property damage and someone might get hurt. Until you're sure you can use your powers safely without putting other people in danger you need to practice control."

And there's no room for argument there.

On the subject getting home-

"Is that... Like a community Inside? Or out along the coast somewhere?" she asks, having no idea where it is. "If Riftline goes there I can get you to the nearest station pretty quick."

[Super Gross]

Control.

Of course he needs to learn control.

But, if he were in the frame of mind to be honest with Olympia, his powers are the very antithesis of control. They go off at near-random and then proceed to act completely independently of him. She might as well ask him to calmly lead a bull through a china shop.

"I'll... bear that in mind." Arthfael says finally, averting his gaze.

But never mind that. For now, home is the goal.

"...Right. There's a Riftline station a few blocks from here, that way." Arthfael points. "I can get to Seaside from there, to the outskirts of Butterfly Bay, and hopefully home in time for a very late dinner and bed."

Because, again, vampire. From his perspective, it's absurdly late.

[Streets: An Angel and Me]

The woman doesn't bother grabbing Marianne into a hug, or putting a hand on her shoulder, or anything. Marianne was already that vocal about just a touch on the wrist, so who can even guess what she'll say if her shoulder is touched, or if she's grappled into a hug or something.

She walks up.
Crouches down nearby.
Pulls down the sunglasses to get a better look into the hole.

"I guess you're lucky this time, then," she says. She pauses, so Marianne can take a moment to register that. "Since nobody was hurt in a way that won't heal over time."

She gestures backwards, waving her hand in the direction she came from. "Those, um...those stickbugs. It's like..." she tries to come up with a decent explanation. "like, um...if you prick your finger, your cells die, right? But you're still okay, just a little hurt. But then after they heal and it's all better."

Okay, maybe not the best explanation. Maybe needs more context. "Okay. Like, ants. Ants are fine so long as the queen is fine, right? Except instead of ants, they're all just the same person. If you just wait a few days, they'll be healed and back to normal, because the queen was still fine." Pretty decent extended mixed metaphor for a quasi-hive mind, right? "They were acting that way because they knew no matter what happened to them, they would still be fine."

...

She stands up.
"So yes, you did mess up but you're lucky because nobody was permanently hurt. Messing up is a normal human thing, just like wanting to do better."

Probably a weird speech coming from someone who is like this who's speaking to an angel, but...oh well.

"..."

"Also that other one wanted you to know that you're really bad at insults and thinks you should practice more."
She puts the sunglasses back in a worn position.

[Streets: An Angel and Me]

"...So, what, you're telling me they didn't matter?"

Uh-oh.

Marianne turns to face the woman, the red puffiness under her eyes matched only by the crimson glow in her cheeks. "I didn't see any [freaking] ants here, lady!" She snaps. "They didn't look like [mama-hugging] cells, either! Those were people, damn it! Don't you go telling me to disregard my own eyes because there happens to be more of them, running around and... and..."

Marianne sniffles and turns away. "...I'm sorry. I know you're just trying to help. I just... I can't see it that way." She rubs at her eyes, running them down the length of her arm to dry them. "I... my first life, I spent too much time stepping on 'little people' and pretending I wasn't doing anything wrong. That behavior got me sent straight to hell. I... I can't do that again. It's wrong."

[Wedding Chapel]

Violeta Escarlate hears a muffled voice.

She goes 'huh?' and looks in the direction of the voice.

"It's late. I need to close up. You should probably go."

Violeta barely hears the apology.

She stands up, wipes her face, and looks around the chapel. It's filled with dust particles suspended in the reddish evening light.
Somehow, that just makes it feel that much emptier.

She opens her mouth, and tries to find her voice. Just....just...please...just...

"Okay. I still need to clean up so...half an hour."

Violeta lies down on a pew and pulls her legs up. She takes her ring off and looks at the way it reflects the light.

[Wedding Chapel]

"...Tragic."
All creation, hear my plea, this man is your enemy
Braeg lets out a little sigh and sits just behind Violeta, taking up the pew behind her as he leans back with irreverent languidness, completely indifferent to the irony of a fiendling Lord in a house of worship.
Who severs fathers from their heads, steals away daughters from their beds
"You must have had quite the day, poor dear." Braeg flicks out a handkerchief from under his sleeve, offering it to Violeta. "Stranded at the altar, with nary a guest to console you... let me guess. Small wedding? No audience, as a matter of privacy between you? Perhaps some secret between you that you'd rather not advertise? The sort of thing which may incentivize cold feet?" He gives Violeta a sympathetic smile. "I've seen it happen hundreds of times. Would you like to talk about it?"

[Vahnavoi]

[Red Hook Pier]

The swordsman moves to his left and draws his sword in a blur, the dart impacting a building behind him. Did he deflect the dart? No. If Batsael could watch through the sequence again on film of a high-speed camera, she'd see Hoshiki only barely dodged the dart by starting to move just as she was pulling the trigger, the dart missing by an inch and going through loose bit of of his clothing. He just drew his sword as part of the same motion.

But it's a nice illusion.

"And if you can't kill me? what then?", Hoshiki taunts, before leaping on top of the building Batsael's in. He hopes he can stick his landing before she shoots at him through the ceiling.

Somebody across the street is screaming in a fit of rage and terror. "In the name of Yog-Sothot! Somebody call the police! The fire department! The inquisition! They're wrecking everything!" They're not wrong. Smoke is rising from the building that was struck by lightning. Escalating grudge matches between angels and supermen are not good for the neighbourhood.

[Rebonack]

[Super Gross]

Actually some people decided to send a bull running through a china shop one time and the bull did a pretty good job of not smashing into any of the shelves.

Very courteous animal.

"Alright, I can do that. Hang on and no screaming," Olympia says as she moves up along side Arthfael to grab him as swirls of purple fabric begin dancing around her and under her feet. She crouches slightly, then the whole sparkly platform erupts, launching the both of them a good two hundred feet straight up into the air.

Pchoooo!

She casts her gaze around, quickly spying the riftline station, and launches one of those grappling gauntlets into the ground nearby. Then, catching the scarf trailing from it, they both go whizzing away at a break-neck pace straight toward the ground!

They're going to splat! Is she crazy?

Another big billowing fabric pile meets them on the other end, eating the whole force of the impact before vanishing in a cloud of purple sparkles. The landing was about as intense as flopping over on a bed. She'll release the very possibly shaken Arthfael once they arrive at the currently empty station.

"Are you actually serious about trying cape stuff? Or was this just a dumb fluke?" she asks, her expression extremely serious.

[bc56]

Red Hook Pier
"I will eventually. You can't kill me. If you do, I'll be back, even angrier. Maybe next time I'll just bomb the whole neighborhood instead of shooting you with a gun," Batsael threatens. She's pretty sure the swordsman is one of those creeps who doesn't like it when critters are killed en masse.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital]

This is one of the least-pleasant looking things Kara has seen in quite some time.
By a lot.

The fact that it's actively desecrating bodies to make itself a little zombie army isn't really improving her initial opinion of it.
But...
If it's intelligent the same way that other one is, maybe it too can be brought to reason.

The zombies are coming straight from corpses, so those she won't have to feel too bad about hurting, if it comes down to it, at least.

Okay, a plan.

Step 1: dip some hands in and snatch the remaining still-dead bodies and let them sit [outside] for a bit, out of reanimation range.
Step 2: enter the morgue as far as possible from the gross thing, in case its immediately violent, and say hi.

"Um. Hello! Any chance I could ask you to stop making zombies out of people?"

[Ironsmith]

[Super Gross]

Actually some people decided to send a bull running through a china shop one time and the bull did a pretty good job of not smashing into any of the shelves.

Very courteous animal.

"Alright, I can do that. Hang on and no screaming," Olympia says as she moves up along side Arthfael to grab him as swirls of purple fabric begin dancing around her and under her feet. She crouches slightly, then the whole sparkly platform erupts, launching the both of them a good two hundred feet straight up into the air.

Pchoooo!

She casts her gaze around, quickly spying the riftline station, and launches one of those grappling gauntlets into the ground nearby. Then, catching the scarf trailing from it, they both go whizzing away at a break-neck pace straight toward the ground!

They're going to splat! Is she crazy?

Another big billowing fabric pile meets them on the other end, eating the whole force of the impact before vanishing in a cloud of purple sparkles. The landing was about as intense as flopping over on a bed. She'll release the very possibly shaken Arthfael once they arrive at the currently empty station.

"Are you actually serious about trying cape stuff? Or was this just a dumb fluke?" she asks, her expression extremely serious.

[Super Gross]

To Arthfael's credit, he doesn't scream when Olympia catapults the two of them across town. It's not nearly loud enough to be a scream. More of a whine, really.

The idea of splattering against the ground and being forced into a semi-feral state again contributes heavily to that response; shock, disbelief and mortal terror all rolled into one.

So naturally, it takes him a minute to realize he's been asked a question.

"I don't know!" He blurts, for once not seeming to care much about the other people passing by and gawking at their landing. "I wasn't- I didn't even think it was a possibility before today! Someone like me, running around and... and doing the kind of stuff you do? Impossible!" Arthfael throws up his hands and turns away. "I'm not a cape. I don't think I'd ever be brave enough to be a cape. And even if I was... that one intervention tonight caused more damage than that magnetic jerkface really could have. I'd do so much more harm than good if I seriously took up caping."

And yet...

He really can't seem to just say no, either.

[Rebonack]

[Inside General Hospital]

Aesthetically pleasing definitely wasn't high on the priority list for this entity when it was creating its horrible amalgamated body. In fact, there's a not terrible chance that its horrific visage was created in a calculated fashion to inspire as much revulsion and fear as possible in its mortal victims. This probably reflects poorly on its character.

Once again Kara snags some bodies and dumps them [somewhere else] which immediately gets the attention of the [swimmers] again. They seem really curious about the intrusion of material things into their domain, though they don't seem to be terribly intelligent in their investigation. More like a bunch of little birds or a school of fish. Just very strange, very esoteric wildlife.

Well.

Then Kara appears.

Way over on the other side of the morgue.

And speaks to the horror which she is now able to see in much greater detail which really doesn't make looking at it any more pleasant.

"Agent of chaos," the abomination shrieks from about two dozen mouths at once. "Die."

It hefts that heating system arm at Kara and somehow launches a fireball at her. Which will explode upon getting close to her in a blast of crystal shards and burning, toxic fluid.

Hmm...

Appears as though it really doesn't feel like talking.

At about the same time the zombies that the horror has created begin shambling awkwardly toward Kara. They aren't nearly as fast or agile as the first big crystal zombie she encountered. They're lacking all those big crystal growths, too. If they get close they'll do standard zombie stuff. Grabbing, biting, and vomiting toxic blue sludge everywhere.


[Super Gross]

There are, thankfully, not many people passing by at the moment. The station is weirdly empty.

Just the two of them and a half-empty paper cup full of coffee that someone left behind on top of bench because they apparently couldn't be bothered to walk four feet and toss it in the trash.

Olympia frowns at that reply.

It wasn't what she was hoping to hear. What she was hoping to hear was 'no I'm never going to try doing something like this ever again.' That isn't what he said though. What he SAID was that this was all really crazy but-

And that's a but that might be dangerous.

"I need you to pay really, really close attention, got it?" Olympia says as she reaches back toward the bow holding up her pony tail. "Usually people just don't notice. Probably a magic thing. So watch."

Khannie dismisses her Magical Girl transformation in a swirl of glittering silver and purple sparkles.

It's all so obvious now. Olympia looked exactly like Khannie save for the purple hair. But something prevented Arthfael's mind from making a link between the two of them. Definitely magic.

"This isn't fun. It isn't a game. If I could go back on it, I would. You don't want to get caught up in this stuff, Arthfael," Khannie says, a pleading look in her eyes.

[Morty]

[Glass Lake Penitentiary]

"One moment." Michalson focuses on Sandels, as he's not likely to get anything useful out of Hazel and Hana at the moment. "I need to talk to the person who possessed Hazel. I need to know who they are, what they are and why they did it. They did commit a crime in our jurisdiction."

[Ironsmith]

[Super Gross]

There are, thankfully, not many people passing by at the moment. The station is weirdly empty.

Just the two of them and a half-empty paper cup full of coffee that someone left behind on top of bench because they apparently couldn't be bothered to walk four feet and toss it in the trash.

Olympia frowns at that reply.

It wasn't what she was hoping to hear. What she was hoping to hear was 'no I'm never going to try doing something like this ever again.' That isn't what he said though. What he SAID was that this was all really crazy but-

And that's a but that might be dangerous.

"I need you to pay really, really close attention, got it?" Olympia says as she reaches back toward the bow holding up her pony tail. "Usually people just don't notice. Probably a magic thing. So watch."

Khannie dismisses her Magical Girl transformation in a swirl of glittering silver and purple sparkles.

It's all so obvious now. Olympia looked exactly like Khannie save for the purple hair. But something prevented Arthfael's mind from making a link between the two of them. Definitely magic.

"This isn't fun. It isn't a game. If I could go back on it, I would. You don't want to get caught up in this stuff, Arthfael," Khannie says, a pleading look in her eyes.

[Super Gross]

Arthfael's eyes widen as Khannie reveals herself, and he internally kicks himself for not putting the clues together sooner. He steps back away from her, looking her up and down, as though taking a survey of all the clues as to her identity that he'd missed.

Then a second epiphany hits him, and he recoils back further, disgusted at himself. Olympia was a stranger, and as upsetting as it was, he could only place so much guilt on himself over biting her while feral. But Khannie...

Arthfael stumbles back into the bench, knocking away the empty coffee cup to make room. Said coffee cup quietly grows a set of crablike legs amd scurries away, much like Arthfael himself wants to do just this moment... walk away and pretend this never happened.

...But that would be wrong.

The young vampire looks up at Khannie, momentarily silent. What should he say now? What was on his mind or what she wanted to hear?

"...Fine." He replies curtly, giving a hard little nod. "You're right. Caping is dangerous. If I were to start at it seriously, I could hurt someone if I'm not careful." He crosses his arms and looks up at her, debating up until the last moment if he should leave out this last part, and if she'd be able to see right through the lie of omission.

...She probably could.

"But you do it all the time." Arthfael continues, standing back up. "You're out here, sticking your neck out for people who can't help themselves. You get smashed, stabbed and burned routinely, and if you aren't careful, you're going to get yourself killed. Khannie, you're [hecking] crazy."

"...Almost as crazy as you'd have to be to think I'd let you do it on your own."

She probably did have help, now that he thought about it. But that wasn't really the point, and they both knew it.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital]

"Yipe!"

Thankfully, Kara was somewhat prepared for this eventuality. It's why she came in with as much distance as she could get.
Plenty of time for her to leap back [outways] so she can watch that fireball do terrible things to stuff-that-wasn't-her.

Okay, so this one is clearly less friendly about its desire to spread "order". That's not ideal. Its little horde of minions aren't a huge deal, they're just angry little bodies, but something that big is problematic.
Between her, Arukhael and Lapis, she's pretty confident they can put it down if need be, though.
If need be.

It's still a life, even if a pretty grotesque one. Maybe it's like the previous instance and just being driven by forces outside of itself?
Maybe she can still help it be a more contributing member of not-just-crystals society.

The Light didn't pull back very far after her previous attempt...
But maybe there's nothing left in this one but the angry light? Maybe it's just a giant crystal zombie at this point capable of some words?
Hmmm.

Okay. Next plan.

Step 1: jump back into the morgue such that we can try to land on top of the horror
Step 2: slap down some hands for grip and more hands for invoking another blessing of peace

"Be NICE!"
Just like before, she grasps for the vague concepts of Chaos and Id within her, but with slightly different intent this time.
She's pretty sure this isn't a case of a bunch of lamenting souls drowning in evil energy this time, just a big horrible monster being driven by something worse.
Something particularly attached to a twisted Order.

So let's see if Shalomel's Light can burn out that Order and whatever drives it to be so hostile to everything around it.

Independence.
Passivity.

[Rebonack]

[Super Train Station?]

Khannie's hand slips over her ear and there's that little purple and gold stud she wears. Interestingly enough it was absent on Olympia, but that's a tiny detail likely to be missed.

Especially with everything else going through Arthfael's head right now.

As for Khannie?

Is she making the right choice here?

Letting him know who she is?

She's been trying to keep her regular girl friends separated away from all this magical stuff. She doesn't want them to get involved.

She doesn't want to get them hurt.

She thought, maybe, if Arthfael really saw who she was then he would take her warning more seriously. He's definitely taking 'whoops I ate my friend's face like three times' seriously. Honestly he probably feels worse about that than she does. If Khannie has learned anything about super powers it's that if a hero has some kind of regeneration power then they're the ones who are going to be taking hideous wounds. That's just how these things work.

Arthfael, though... does he know about all that stuff?

"The difference is you don't have to," Khannie says, her voice firm. "This Magical Girl thing is a curse, Arthfael. If I don't fight then I die. I'm looking for a way to cure it that doesn't leave me an insane ghost monster. Look, I can take it. So long as I've got magic left I stay all sparkly and pristine. If I get smeared across the street I can stand right back up and keep going."

As opposed to, say, turning the neighborhood into hunger monsters.


[Inside General Hospital]

Karaglen leaps back into [elsewhere] and gets a nice brief view of the [swimmers] nibbling at the corpses left behind. The effect isn't unlike a sheet of paper getting holes slowly burned into it by a little expanding orange ring of embers. This probably isn't ideal but she definitely has more important things to be worrying about right now.

Back into the world she comes, glomping onto the back of the spidery amalgam and forcing peace upon it. The searing Light consumes, burning away at the hostility and violence bound up in this being's form. A distaste directed at every life that isn't itself. An unshakable conviction that its form of Order is the ONLY form of order. That cold disdain for living things is smothered in that Light. The horror slumps. Without the animus and purpose there isn't much left.

It's at this point that a particular detail that was visible from outways becomes quite relevant.

Inside the amalgam's body there exists a hole in reality out of which flows alien life energy. That flow gutters, briefly, when Kara enacts her will upon the world. But when that facet of a greater whole goes still a baleful gaze is turned upon it more fully and eldritch power comes flooding from the gate. This has the immediate effect of reinvigorating the amalgam with its inexorable purpose. Also causes those crystals on its back to get much bigger and much more pointy very quickly. Twisting its torso with a sickening pop of muscle and bone, it whirls around to swat Karaglen away with its limb of blades and spikes in a distinctly not nice way.

This is, incidentally, also when Lapis arrives on the scene.

A coruscating shell of raw power snaps into existence around Kara, absorbing the brunt of the amalgam's attack and retaliating with a pulse of lightning blades that lick across the surroundings, searing holes into the larger monster and obliterating a few of the closest zombies outright.

"I'm done I'm here!" Lapis announces as she resolves into the amalgam's personal space, standing on her hind legs with sword and shield of obsidian and bottled lightning clutched in her grasp.

[Ironsmith]

[Super Train Station]

"...Really?"

Now that Khannie put it like that, Arthfael is much more confident in his decision.

"You're sitting there telling me you live with a curse that forces you to act out and makes your life more difficult, that if you don't do what it asks it turns you into a crazy ghost thing, and you think I have no idea what that's like?" Arthfael lets out a little laugh at that. "Khannie... exactly how long have you spent around my family and I? I'll do you one better; I was an insane ghost-thing for most of my life. And the reason I'm not now is because my uncle was there to see my sisters and I back to health. If you know anybody who can tell you how important it is to have someone there for you, you're talking to him."

Arthfael runs his hands along his arms and averts his gaze. "Besides, I..."

No.

Now is not the time.

"...you're my friend, Khannie. Even if we didn't have that much in common... I'm not going to just stand by while you're being hurt." He turns his attention back to her. "So I'm going to help any way I can. That's a promise, got it?"

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital

Okay, there's a really solid lesson here in not letting down one's guard. Sure, Lapis picked up the slack and minimized the hurt-puppy noise that was going to come from Kara into a surprised-puppy noise instead.
But it still shouldn't really have happened anyway.

Karaglen quickly moves herself away from the immediate smashing zone, figuring Lapis has volunteered to take that role pretty handily here.
Things we've learned:
1: it has nothing to it but hostility, it's definitely just a big zombie that knows some words.
2: there's definitely another angry thing within arm's reach

"I think its boss is using a portal inside of it to feed it energy!"
A portal that she kind of wants to try to go through. It doesn't really matter how small it is when your body is just an infinite fractal of every shrinking hands that can be rearranged down to fit.

But the Light did actually pulls back after this latest Invocation and she probably shouldn't get into a shouting match with an angry god-thing while she's handicapped.
So some other time.

"Watch out!"

She can at least contribute a little bit to containment.

Mostly in the form of reaching deep for a seldom-used-by-her aspect of draconic life: her breath weapon.
After scrambling to make sure she can grab some of the other zombies in the path, Karaglen baths the room in molten glass.

[Rebonack]

[Super Train Station]

"I saw your family at that beach party that one time," Khannie replies. "I didn't know what your deal is besides vampires. Glad you aren't a ghost anymore, I guess. Being ghost-type sucks."

She isn't a vampire expert, but apparently she's sort of a ghost expert? What's she mean by ghost-type?

Khannie takes her turn to rub her arm awkwardly, but she perks up in a hurry.

"This is different though," she says, looking defiant. "This isn't me needing to eat bunnies or whatever. If I don't hunt Witches for their grief seeds then I'm toast."

That doesn't actually explain why she has to fight jerks like Master Magnegauntlet though.

The short answer is that she doesn't.

She's just got enough juice to do that, too.

"I'm not alone. I've got the other Magical Girls. We all work together. And I guess there's-"

"Oooh are we done with super things is it lunch time yet?" Maridia asks as she shimmers out of invisibility and lands on the roof of the train station.

Does the fairy dragon really count as help, though?

Really?

That's an attempt, at least. Khannie is still trying to dissuade Arthfael.

However futile that might be...


[Inside General Hospital]

Letting your guard down is never a good idea in a fight.

Especially against omnicidal horrors.

Whatever Lapis did definitely helped there. That barrier is still buzzing around Karaglen with scarcely contained violence just daring anything to try to swat at her again. Though, for the most part, it doesn't look like she has to worry too much about violence in the near future. Mostly because all the zombies seem to be pretty well focused on Lapis. At the mention of the portal there's... Lapis definitely did SOMETHING. All of a sudden that portal inside the monster is highlighted in orange even through its flesh. This comes along with-

Aetherial MacroPhage Gatekeeper
Threat Level: High, solo engagement not recommended
This creature is highest form of Aether Phage, possessing a stable Aether Riftgate inside of its body to reinforce it. This gate is both a source of power and weakness! Use piercing attacks to damage it while bypassing its fleshy body. If the MacroPhage is able to acquire enough biomass it can create permanent a Aether Riftgate large enough for other aetherial threats to pass through. Use whatever means is required to prevent such a beach-head.

Fire blooms across the morgue, drowning zombies in molten glass and searing into the flesh of the amalgam. It seems frustratingly resilient, though. Thankfully Lapis is pretty adept at dealing with frustratingly resilient foes. First, though, she doesn't want to get blasted with molten glass. This makes sense, honestly. One one likes getting blasted with molten glass even if they're mostly made of obsidian themselves.

And so?

Lapis takes a single fluid step back and extends the point of her sword.

"The Law of Infinite Light."

To know the Law of Infinite Light is to know this; energy permeates reality. Every flicker. Every star. Every motion. Even the emptiness of space seethes with energy. Energy waiting to harnessed. Energy waiting to be transformed. With the stroke of your sword shackle the cosmos and wield its infinite light for your purpose.

Where her sword touches the wall of molten glass there's a loud snap! as the sea of fire is instantly frozen into a glittering wave, its energy devoured and poured into the edge of Lapis' blade. Then, with a single stroke, she cleaves the blazing weapon through the amalgam's impure flesh.

The horror lurches to the side with speed uncanny for something of its size, though it doesn't manage to avoid the blow. The sword bites into its sword arm, blasting the whole limb apart in an incandescent explosion of light and burning meat chunks. With its main melee weapon crippled there's no way it'll be able to stand up to Lapis, right?

Haha, no!

More energy pours through the portal inside it, feeding flesh and crystalline power to the abomination and three new equally horrible limbs burst from the stump. One covered in thorns, one in blades, and one in mouths. It immediately begins flailing at Lapis with all of these.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital]

Karaglen didn't really think the glassing was going to end the big thing, she was mostly hoping it would scoop out most of the little guys and then inconvenience their boss enough for Lapis to do her thing.
Which she did!
...unsuccessfully!
The exact opposite of successfully, it looks like, actually. Wow it got uglier.

Aetherial Macrophage Gatekeeper. That's a mouthful.
And the thing inside it is called an aetherial riftgate? Apparently it was a good thing she took away those bodies, if it was using them to make the rift bigger.

"Hold on, Lapis! I'll try to keep it still for you!"
The Light has already swung back in her favor, so it's time to put it back to work.

She spreads her hands onto the glass covering the floor beneath her and wills a new Shape into it.

Specifically, a shape that involves it rather cocoon-ishly occupying the space immediately around the macrophage.

[Vahnavoi]

[Red Hook Pier]

"I will eventually. You can't kill me. If you do, I'll be back, even angrier. Maybe next time I'll just bomb the whole neighborhood instead of shooting you with a gun," Batsael threatens. She's pretty sure the swordsman is one of those creeps who doesn't like it when critters are killed en masse.

"Sounds like a lot of effort to spite one man!", Hoshiki calls out, walking on the roof above Batsael. "What did I do to earn such wrath?"

---

[Glass Lake Penitentiary]

"One moment." Michalson focuses on Sandels, as he's not likely to get anything useful out of Hazel and Hana at the moment. "I need to talk to the person who possessed Hazel. I need to know who they are, what they are and why they did it. They did commit a crime in our jurisdiction."

Sandels looks at loss for a brief moment, then twirls the flask in his hand. The pearl inside makes a rattling sound. "... if you want to do that, you will need to get me a spare body. This thing isn't going to utter a word the way it is now." He glances at Hazel and Hana. "Make whatever arrangements you need for those two. For them, this is over now. Unless... nah. You have something to ask them, asl on your own time."

[Rebonack]

[Inside General Hospital]

Scooping out the little zombies appeared to have worked just fine.

Incinerated their flesh and shattered the little microphages that were puppeting the bodies.

Which is definitely a start, right?

That crackling shell of wild power springs up around Lapis and suddenly it becomes clear while railing a storm of hammer bows down upon it might not be the best plan. Blades of energy lash out from it as it batters against Lapis' raised shield, scouring flesh to ashes wherever they touch. Between the bolstering effect and Lapis' physical shield that assault definitely looks like it's harming the amalgam more than it's hurting Lapis.

Then it gets glomped by the glass cocoon.

Which Lapis capitalizes on immediately.

"The Law of Empty Form."

To know the Law of Empty Form is to know this: the whole of the cosmos is jigsaw of broken pieces. Dust in the wind. Empty space. There is no form or shape inherent to it, merely a void held coherent for an ephemeral moment. Dust arranged for a purpose for the twinkling of an eye before fading once again to dust. With the edge of your sword return your foe to formlessness.

Lapis darts forward in a blinding lunge, plunging her sword straight into the amalgamation's center of mass, the flesh around it blasted to dust and hurled away as by a might wind. The tip of the sword pierces the rift and-

-the monster explodes.

Glass.

Meat chunks.

Crystals.

Burning, toxic fluid and raw aether.

Definitely not a good time.

Hovering now where the horror once was hovers a crystalline dodecahedron as large around as a human is tall, streamers of aether-fire lashing and writhing from its faces. Without a word its whip-like limbs bear down on our heroes to scourge them with the unfettered fury of an angry god. If they were the sorts of creatures with life force this would be intensely bad. The nearly pure aether would probably corrupt their life energy on the spot. Thankfully they have no such thing and so instead it will just hurt a great deal as the impossible flames bite into them.

Kara's bulwark, thankfully, can still endure three more blows before it crumbles. Less thankfully this monster is lashing out with all twelve of its horrible burning limbs.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital]

She flicks her wings to discard all the sort-of-gore she shielded herself from, only to see more attacks immediately incoming.

Oh come on!
Lapis is pulling out all these cool-looking moves and the thing really just doesn't feel like going down quietly, does it?

While her physical movement speed is pretty phenomenal now that she's free from muscle-restriction, her mental reaction time isn't quite enough to allow her to dip away from the attacks entirely.
But maybe that's not such a bad thing, if you ignore how much it's going to hurt.

Not at first, as she dips to the side, catching a couple to the side and allowing Lapis' shield to eat the blows and she squeezes her way between a few more, before the remnants of the shield are blown past and a couple more of the tentacles slap her in the face.
Her face splits open into a greater variety of hands to grab- wait these hands are made of fire, we can't grab fire can we?

~~~

Kara's mind pulls away from the scene rather abruptly, for a moment that doesn't really feel like a moment to her.
It feels like a lot of moments spent being really perplexed by the inexplicable sea of options spontaneously presented to her.

There's a notification that she has (1) talent point to spend and...wow, are these all things she can use it on?
A window presents the next step in that construct skill she apparently used to make Larry, but Larry isn't here at the moment and wouldn't solve the problem anyway...
She needs to be able to do something with her hands about fire.

Absolute Grip Level 1
You are able to grasp immaterial substances (water, gas, fire) as though it were solid. Note: does not prevent damage from grasping dangerous materials.

That seems a little on the nose, but okay, yes. How do we take that- okay, just by wanting it. Oh, it also says what the next level of it is?

Absolute Grip Level 2
You are no longer injured by grasping dangerous materials.

Gee, thanks.

~~~

-her face splits open into a greater variety of hands to grab as many of these flaming tentacles as she possibly can.
They sting and burn and hurt as they lash against her, but she's going to endure it to keep the monstrosity pinned down long enough for Lapis to maybe-finally put it down. Again.

The iridescent gleam of the glass her fingers consist of glows brightly, casting a prismatic glow about the air as they enable themselves to grasp the ungraspable.

[Rebonack]

[Inside General Hospital]

Karaglen apprehends her foe.

Which hurts.

Really, not even a little bit comfortable.

It is actually causing harm to her, grasping that impossible aetherial fire, but the way in which it's causing harm isn't obvious. She isn't getting burns on her hands or anything of the sort. She just feels slightly... diminished? Somehow? It's a feeling that makes her hungry. With the right materials she can build herself up again. But right now probably isn't the best time for snacking.

Or is it?

Lapis' barrier again absorbs the the brunt of the first impact, bursting in a shower of luminous blades and cleaving through several of the aetherial limbs flailing at her. She takes several stinging slaps across the face and shoulders, but her shield takes the worst of the punishment. Then Kara glomps the monster. And that's exactly the opening Lapis can use. Once again she focuses her killing intent upon the weak point of the monster, draws back her sword and-

"The Law of Sovereign Blades."
To know the Law of Sovereign Blades is to know this: it is the Will which divides, and the Will alone. It is the Will that separates 'self' from 'other'. It is the Will that cleaves between 'do' and 'do not'. It is the Will that cuts, and that Sovereign Blade is a continuous cutting motion.

-thrusts.

There's a haze surrounding Lapis' sword.

Viewing from the other side as Kara is, the whole world seen through that mirrored sheen appears as though it has been divided asunder.

The blade plunges through the crystalline shell of the macrophage. It pierces the rift within and cleaves out the aspect of reach. Unable to touch the face of a dead god any longer, the rift gutters and dies. The aetherial flames pouring fourth from the phage grow weaker, its impenetrable shell grows brittle, its grip on the minds of the dead grows tenuous.

"It's vulnerable! Let's finish this bad guy off!" Lapis says, ready to strike a killing blow assuming Karaglen doesn't decide to take a great big chomp out of this thing of magic and malign alien order.

[Ironsmith]

[Super Train Station]

"I saw your family at that beach party that one time," Khannie replies. "I didn't know what your deal is besides vampires. Glad you aren't a ghost anymore, I guess. Being ghost-type sucks."

She isn't a vampire expert, but apparently she's sort of a ghost expert? What's she mean by ghost-type?

Khannie takes her turn to rub her arm awkwardly, but she perks up in a hurry.

"This is different though," she says, looking defiant. "This isn't me needing to eat bunnies or whatever. If I don't hunt Witches for their grief seeds then I'm toast."

That doesn't actually explain why she has to fight jerks like Master Magnegauntlet though.

The short answer is that she doesn't.

She's just got enough juice to do that, too.

"I'm not alone. I've got the other Magical Girls. We all work together. And I guess there's-"

"Oooh are we done with super things is it lunch time yet?" Maridia asks as she shimmers out of invisibility and lands on the roof of the train station.

Does the fairy dragon really count as help, though?

Really?

That's an attempt, at least. Khannie is still trying to dissuade Arthfael.

However futile that might be...

[Super Train Station]

"Grief seeds, hearts and souls... I don't see much of a meaningful difference." Arthfael replies, taking his first steps onto the train as it pulls in. "And... yeah, I'm sure you do have help, but most of them are in the exact same situation as you, right? If nothing else, don't you think you could at least benefit from an outsider who won't be needing his own grief seeds?" He lets the question hang in the air as he grabs onto a handhold. "We can sort out the details later. But I'm not leaving this alone. I wouldn't be much of a friend if I did. Besides..." He smirks. "I owe you, don't I?"

[Glass Lake Penitentiary]

"One moment." Michalson focuses on Sandels, as he's not likely to get anything useful out of Hazel and Hana at the moment. "I need to talk to the person who possessed Hazel. I need to know who they are, what they are and why they did it. They did commit a crime in our jurisdiction."

[Glass Lake Penitentiary]


Sandels looks at loss for a brief moment, then twirls the flask in his hand. The pearl inside makes a rattling sound. "... if you want to do that, you will need to get me a spare body. This thing isn't going to utter a word the way it is now." He glances at Hazel and Hana. "Make whatever arrangements you need for those two. For them, this is over now. Unless... nah. You have something to ask them, asl on your own time."

[Glass Lake Penitentiary]

For their part, even though they're about to be locked up again, Hana and Hazel don't look like they could be much happier. They're still busy getting reacquainted with one another and quietly assuring each other of their mutual future together, even if it's as convicts. They're going to keep at that until they're addressed specifically.

[Recaiden]

[Definitely Normal Errands]

"That's how they get you!" Zee insists. "They lure you in with a false sense of security pretending they're selling above the board technology when REALLY it's just a bunch of completely magical nonsense powered by imagination. It's like... oh! Like super powers! Like does anyone really expect a radioactive spider bite would give someone giant spider powers? The proportional strength thing doesn't even make sense because arthropods are strong because of the square-cube law, not because of having some sort of crazy strength. Bio-mechanics is kind of my whole thing, believe me. Giving someone the musculature of an ant would not give someone a huge strength boost. That stuff is all just magic, powered by imagination, while pretending it makes sense."

As she walks she pauses briefly, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

"Though I guess they kind of retconned things to say all human super powers were because of giant robot alien space god magic that was imbued in humans a long time ago or something that lets super powers happen. That's okay, I suppose, so long as they're admitting that it's all silly and impossible."

Zee takes all of these things very seriously!

Today.

For some reason?

"How did I get banished? Someone was using some kind of banishing spell, I guess? Flubbed my save really bad. That happens sometimes."

Even the strongest people can roll a four.

"Well, it's a little unlikely that radioactive emissions would carry the Form of the spider, but it's not impossible. It could just be what that kind of spider does, for one."
"Zee, that's a fine hobby, but it's not how biology actually works, you know? Usually things are strong because they're refined and well-put-together and contain a lot of Strength."

Then Zee goes off into some sort of comic book history conspiracy theory and the devil just nods along.

"So, where do new things like you come from?"

Banishing spell, that's good news. They can do spells. That's a sensible part of the world.

[Rebonack]

[Super Train Station]

"I think grief seeds are souls. Just souls turned into a physical thing. Hang on sec," Khannie says as she reaches into her backpack and pulls out the black gem with silver filigree on it. There's a sharp, long point on one side and what looks like a little stylized teddy bear on the top. She holds it up for the vampire to see. "This is all that's left of Magical Girl after she turns into a Witch and gets clobbered."

Then onto the train!

"Sekhmet, that devil lady who lives at GLoG? She figured out how to encourage a Witch back into being sane again. How to put her back inside of a body, too. Problem is it's really hard. Only one of her and lots of Witches, right? And most of the time a girl's body doesn't survive very long after getting turned into a Witch."

She frowns at the seed in her hand.

"This girl here? I found her Witch over by the Mispelled Cemetary. Zombies had eaten her body already."

Which is a real shame, honestly.

"She went by the super name Titan Teddy. Met her once, she seemed nice, but kind of sad. Dunno what her real name was."

Khannie sits down on the train next to Arthfael, looking at the seed in her hands.

"I guess... if you aren't going to change your mind I should probably tell you about the cape scene Inside," she sighs. She also sends a text message to her dad letting him know what she's going over to a friend from GLoG's house.


[Definitely Normal Errands]

We'll set comics and other such nonsense aside for the time being. Clearly no headway is going to be made here at all. What does 'containing lots of strength' even mean? Is this some sort of faerie nonsense? Zee has no idea.

"New empyreans, you mean? Hmm, well, a couple different ways I guess? You can have a regular person go through apotheosis. That's what happened to me. Or bigger empyreans can create a Messenger and under the right circumstances that Messenger can become their own totally unique empyrean with their own Path. That's what happened with my daughter Lapis Lazuli. And the Empyrean itself generates just gobs of putti and if the putti grows powerful enough they can attain their own Path, too."

Then!

She raises a finger!

"Exposition glossary break! An empyrean's Path is basically both the thing they represent and the thing that drives them. Sort of like the ideal that gives us purpose. It's very important since it says a lot about who we are and the ideas we ant to share with the world."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital]

It still persists?
Karaglen grits a menagerie of teeth hard enough that the miniscule fingers at their core unfurl slightly.

Okay, finishing blows. Got it.

She feels less now, and it's almost certainly the effects of the fire she's holding tight to.
But the enemy also seems less now. Quite a bit less.

The memory of an impression, from not so long ago, pushes itself into her mind. Blazing brightly, devouring the energies around her and feeling more.
This enemy is making her less and happens to have some ugly energy, so perhaps...we can reverse this trend.

"Okay Lapis, let's finish it off then."
Kara jerks her head upwards, to get a better grip on the flaming tendrils with her unfurling fangs, to put her strength into jerking it closer to her.

From there, reaching out to the Light again, deeper. Remembering what she thought before, that deep desire for peace, calm, the cessation of violence and suffering.
To push this out into the world and sear away all traces of the rot this thing represents. Its hatred, its foul Order, grotesque desire to warp and consume the flesh of all those around it, to destroy everything else.

It's not really alive and it wants everything else to be like it.
So the Path of Peace will be called in its full glory to ensure the phage's desires can finally end.

[Rebonack]

[Inside General Hospital]

Devoured.

Esoteric teeth of searing light bite into the horror and the thing of eldritch magic comes unwound, vanishing like a bad dream at the touch of dawn. The woven strands of primordial possibility are consumed. The tentative imitation of matter ravaged. The aether fire dissolves into raw magic; its toxicity and vile corruptive power reduced to nothing. The crystalline taint it has spread across the morgue is likewise burned away to nothing.

Gone.

Gobbled up like a piece of bamhacon.

The potential for growth is stored away, filling some abstract space within Kara, like a vial full of stardust waiting to be fashioned into a new point of light in the constellations of possibility she had glimpsed briefly only moments ago. Some of that power is utilized immediately, mingled with the true mattered she had consumed earlier and sanctified into new heavenly material to build back up that which was lost in her battle with this foul corruption. The feeling of diminishment is replaced by one of growth.

"You got him!" Lapis says, beaming brightly at her sister's very first boss kill. "Now that gross thing won't be able to hurt anyone anymore! I loved the part with the hands they went all WOOSH! and you grabbed him all up!"

Lapis is, as usual, extremely enthusiastic about everything.

And then even more nonsense begins rolling around within Karaglen's perception.

-Investigate the Medical Emergency
-Disable the Flow of Aetherial Toxin
-Destroy the Macrophage
--Optional: Clear all aetherial infection from the hospital

The End of the Beginning: Complete your first quest
Rewards!
-One Talent Point
-One Lesser Relic Fragment Trove
-Bonus Renown with Inside

>Arukhael: It looked like you and Bahdalel had the boss covered, so I've been working on clearing out infections.
>Arukhael: I don't think anyone else is in immediate danger of death but the sooner we can get this aether out of these people the better.
>Arukhael: There are still zombies locked in some of the rooms but I don't think they're a threat to anyone yet.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital]

Better. Karaglen feels better.

Improvement from violence, it pains some part of her ethics, but this is assuaged by the lack of true life from the thing she just consumed.
Just like a meal at the tavern with Mother, only this meal was going to hurt other people if she didn't eat it fast enough.
That's all.

She pulls some of the tenseness from her smile for Lapis' sake and takes a moment to resettle her shape into that more properly sleek lupine dragon.
"I'm just glad it won't be hurting anyone anymore."

The feeling of all that new extra growth is tucked away for a moment, while all of those new windows are assessed.
More aetherial infection (naturally, that's what Arukhael is mentioning), some more...points? treasure?
Weirdness that can wait for that first part.

>Shalomel: Okay, we're going to come back up to help.
>Shalomel: Keep doing what you're doing, I really appreciate it.

The work continues.
Kara looks upwards and makes a vague sort of gesture to Lapis.
"Hey Lapis, you wanna take out a few more zombies while I make sure some sick people keep going?"

[Rebonack]

[Inside General Hospital]

Is it really violence if it is directed at something that's already dead?

Probably.

Kara never really thought much about where that bamhacon came from, did she? Death is often a part of life, but abominations like these... they aren't part of anything that's of this world. Best to remove them before they can cause too much harm. And speaking of things harmed!

"Is it... is it dead? The crystals don't feel like they're vibrating anymore," someone speaks up from nearby.

Three someones.

Right over there.

Three humans, made separate and unique again. Their veins still glow that unwholesome shade of electric blue and each is crowned with crystal points upon their brow but they aren't all melded into a horrible flesh monstrosity anymore. They're all alive. Touched by that alien life energy, certainly, but still alive and themselves. Each is wrapped in a plain hospital gown because there wasn't much else available.

"Yeah!" Lapis replies cheerfully. "Kara and I got it good you guys are going to be just fine okay don't worry I think you might have some aether powers or things now maybe but you'll be alright and it looks like you have little hats now I love them!"

One of the trio self-consciously touches at her crystal crown and, in spite of herself, smiles.

"You stay safe okay we'll do the rest of the work and make sure there aren't anymore bad-guys int he hospital okay bye!" Lapis says as she drifts away to see to the zombies that remain.

***

The rest of the work will be without incident.

It turns out that Arukhael is maintaining his human form, which makes sense due to the fact he isn't doing any fighting to speak of. A pretty normal looking human. Seventeenish looking? With curly white hair and a tabard that looks an awful lot like the vestments some of the church folk around the Nexus wear. He's a pretty disarming person and wholly committed to healing first and foremost. Lapis doesn't take long to finish off the small number of zombies and moves next to excising aether infection with The Law of Sovereign Blades. Working along side Kara this proves to speed up the healing process considerably, Lapis cutting out the infection and Kara resorting what's lost. It turns out that due to the Code Black precaution the hospital will remain locked down until a team of zombie specialists can sweep the building and give it an all clear.

Which brings us to our trio of heroes sitting in a row of hospital chairs. Arukhael still human and Lapis having assumed her half-drow child form. She doesn't look any older than ten. She's in high spirits, kicking her feet energetically.

"Are these new monsters I haven't seen this sort before they're so gross and terrible and the zombie things they do make me really sad," Lapis rambles.

"They cropped up the first time a few weeks ago," Arukhael replies. "Just a string of attacks around the city. Basic monsters climbing out of portals stuff. This attack was quite a bit more subtle."

[Recaiden]

[Definitely Normal Errands]

We'll set comics and other such nonsense aside for the time being. Clearly no headway is going to be made here at all. What does 'containing lots of strength' even mean? Is this some sort of faerie nonsense? Zee has no idea.

"New empyreans, you mean? Hmm, well, a couple different ways I guess? You can have a regular person go through apotheosis. That's what happened to me. Or bigger empyreans can create a Messenger and under the right circumstances that Messenger can become their own totally unique empyrean with their own Path. That's what happened with my daughter Lapis Lazuli. And the Empyrean itself generates just gobs of putti and if the putti grows powerful enough they can attain their own Path, too."

Then!

She raises a finger!

"Exposition glossary break! An empyrean's Path is basically both the thing they represent and the thing that drives them. Sort of like the ideal that gives us purpose. It's very important since it says a lot about who we are and the ideas we ant to share with the world."

"Do you happen to have an actual glossary? I'm a quick reader." It would get around a lot of Zee's rambling, and also let them focus on important things, like Spiderman comics.

"The Lapis Lazuli at VIGIL who hunts birds? There doesn't seem to be much of a resemblance." The hiveling mentions. Although, there's not much resemblance between her and her relatives, but, they don't expect other creatures to work nearly as sensibly.

"So the Path is the thing they represent and the thing that drives them, but not the thing that they are?"
That sounds fascinating, actually.

[5a Violista]

[Streets: An Angel and Me]

The woman doesn't rise to Marianne's provocation.

Luckily, the sunglasses make the inability to tell what her eyes are doing seem more normal.

"Then just..." She pauses, as if trying to decide what to say next. "...make sure you do better next time."

Okay, with that, she turns.
"You can stay here if you want, I need to go find where this GLoG is." She starts walking.


[Wedding Chapel]

Violeta Escarlate has a lot of questions.

Who is he?
How did he know?
How much does he know?
When did he get in here?
Among others.

However, the foxgirl instead can only find her voice to ask one: "...is it really that obvious?" she asks.

She presses her head harder against the pew for a few moments, takes a deep breath, then sits up.

Violeta feels the need to push back against Braeg, though. "E-even if he's late, he'll be here. Just watch. He just had car troubles, that's all," she says. ""H-he's going to be running through that door right now."
There's only one problem.
In order to convince someone, you need to sound convincing. And you can't really sound convincing if you can't even convince yourself.
And Violeta definitely hasn't convinced herself yet.

Instead of looking at the door or out the window to prove how much faith she has in this, she instead closes her eyes and bites her lip.
Violeta comes from a long line of second daughters. And that's why you can know she's telling the truth when she says, "My goddess has already gotten me all the way this far, so it can't be that much more to ask for him to show up." Or maybe it is, because after that she finally concedes and reaches out to grab the handkerchief, to dab at her cheeks (in an effort to get the tears without smearing the makeup onto the handkerchief).

[Chaotic Bob]

[Inside General Hospital]

Karaglen folded herself back up as soon as it was confirmed she wouldn't necessarily have to help in subduing the various zombies.
Her hair was been tied back into folded ponytail to keep it out of the way while everyone is being treated, but she lets it back down when she drops herself into a seat afterwards.

"Phew, that was a lot."
Sure is hard work being one of the primary heroes on duty and also being the after clean-up crew.
And yet.
She doesn't really feel tired. Invigorated, in a way, rather.
"Gross and terrible, but we really did something good here!"

A hospital at risk of having permanently shattered peace, preserved, and a lot of patients left better than they started.
A few were lost...but they minimized it as much as they possibly could.

"So these things have been around for awhile? Are they all trying to make those weird portal things? I felt something pretty big behind it."
Which reminds her of that spur-of-the-moment thought that she had to discard.
"Has anyone tried to go through and stop this at the source?"