JLA Watchtower (Archive)

Sand wipes the blood from his nose. "Nothing I won't live through." he says, surveying things. "Is everyone else OK? Because we're on a clock, and we need to track that thing and get to Caleb before it all really goes south."

He looks towards Constantine. "Nice move."

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He shrugs.

"It's still alive don't get excited." He leans down to clean off the travelling sword. It's really not in good shape now with the metal blackened from what he'd just done to it. "An now it's moving to home territory."

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"Anyone think to throw on a 'you are here' marker on it before it left?" Chimp asks, coming out of hiding. "So we can find out where 'home territory' is?"

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"I've got a sample Tara's cracking away at now." She looks at her watch. "We may have a bit on that, but honestly--"

Corrine really doesn't want to be the one to say this. She sighs a little. "I think whatever we can get our hands on to narrow down the search would be a good idea. That thing negates anything I can do. If it catches up to us again, it could strand us, and the very last place I want to be stranded is the leylines. We ne-- we should have something more... specific."

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Sand looks over at Constantine as he's trying to clean off the sword. "Before you're done with that, might I have a feel?" He looks at the rest of the team. "I'm no fan of touching demon innards, but, you know, the innards have been where Caleb is, and if I can get some sort of flashback off of it."
He sighs. "This is where I wish I could control the visions more."

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Trevor shudders, remembering his last trip along the world's lines of magical force. If he remembers correctly, one of his teeth is still there. Instead of that thought, he watches what Sand is doing instead.

"I don't suppose this thing would have DNA or anything useful in its guts that might identify where it's from?"

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"Don't work like that, might get some idea off the emanations it gives off as it absorbs the essence of what it's surrounded by. But in this wankers case that means ley lines. We don't need t'know where it came from we need t'know what it considers a prison." After a moments consideration he'll extend the sword to Sand, he won't hand it over in the shape it's in the man could accidently open a portal to Mars if they aren't lucky.

Of all the times for the maker to be dead.

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Sand reaches over and touches the sword gently, hoping for something worthwhile from what he touches. He focuses on the past, hoping that will guide it a bit.

He really needs to work with better control of these flashes. When there's time.

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Without warning, Sand suddenly finds himself in another place. From the look of it he’s in a church basement, and a dark figure, alone in a Sunday school room, is tracing a pentagram on the floor, and laying candles out around it.

Sand then finds himself on the steps outside, watching as a horde of panicked people try to push their way out of the building, but are stopped by an unperceivable wall at the threshold. They panic, and many are trampled in the desperate rush to what they hope is safety. Then comes the dark figure from behind the crowd of desperate Mexicans, with black ink pools in the place of eyes. It’s movements are unnatural, as if something unaccustomed to bipedal locomotion were forced inside of it.

Years have passed, and the possessed form, injured though not rotting away, is perched in a window, observing the stillness outside. The same stillness it knew for a decade, and the same unrelenting stillness it would know for decades to come.

Then, a stranger. A half-breed, accompanied by another man - Constantine. Constantine betrays the half-breed, paralyzing him and offering his body as a sacrifice for the demon’s freedom. But it’s a trick, one designed to prevent the demon from knowing that Constantine is here to free it until the very last moment.

Calibusk then walks the ley lines, being on a seemingly endless ribbon of streaming blue energy surrounded by absolute nothingness, like a starless night’s sky. There are other creatures like Calibusk. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Thousands. And the largest of them all addresses Calibusk, obvious displeasure written on his unpleasant face.

“You have a debt to repay, child. You may not resume your station until you have settled it.”

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Sand snaps back, and looks at Constantine. "You need to see what I just saw, I think. May Brainwave establish a mindlink?"

Yes, he's asking permission this time.

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"No peekin' while your in there." He glares at Brainwave.

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Don't worry, John - Tefe' warned me about going there.

In several seconds, Sand's flashback is played, in vivid detail, to the entire team.

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"It's a leyline guardian. No wonder I can't throw down with it; it's there specifically to counter people like me breaking the rules. By freeing it, Constantine, you indebted it to you, and now it can't go home."

Corrine blinks, scratches her head, smirks. "Guess I'd be pissed, too, after all that time in a crumbling church. They'll let me pass, though. I think. Not like I'm speaking from experience."

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"Right, not like you showed me anythin' I didn't know. There ain't no point in lettin' it pay me back. In case none of you lot have ever played with them you don't take favors from them even if they owe you. Ever hear the story about the Genie an the bottle? Not so nice version the Genie gives one wish an it's how the person will die. He owed it an had to do somethin' but his version of bein' nice was lettin' the poor sod choose how to get himself topped." Brainwave's remark about Tefe is making him the recipient of more looks, not many of them nice.

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Amelia sighs and rolls her eyes. Yeah, she gets there's a whole other loop here that she's not invited in on. Conversation makes for plenty of insight.

"Alignment rarely means anything under the parameters of guardianship," she mutters, picking at the remains of her crawlers. "Protector of the leylines first, infernal creature second. I.E. doing something of its nature-- something 'demony'-- violates the standards of its station.

"Plainly-- it's not allowed to hurt you, Mr. Constantine. Even by trickery."

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"Must be nice t'live in your world Sunshine, all the lollipop bushes an visits from the Easter Rabbit." The look she gets is pure disgust.

"Might want t'wake up the rest of the way an join the real world. It can do whatever it wants so long as it's agreed to, trick or not doesn't matter if it's got permission. Loopholes Sunshine, everything is about loopholes."

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"Problem isn't whether or not it wants to hurt Constantine. Problem is what it wants to do for him. These things are all wrapped up in 'balance.' Johnny-boy here did it a huge favor, and now it's going to do a favor for him." He glances at Constantine. "Whether he wants him to or not."

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"An it's idea of a favor is giving me power. Don't matter if it kills someone else t'do it." He shrugs, he doesn't want the power really, it's not so much the factor of someone getting hurt to acheive it that's the problem.

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And all Amelia really cares about is the 'who' in that 'someone'. She also hadn't realized how truly entertaining Mr. Constantine could be during incineration until just now.

Back in the real world, however, her urge to kick the git in the head is made an impossibility with present company. "As much as a joyless existance of boozing and back-stabbing sounds lovely, I like my world of stocks and charities just fine. And I doubt very much that you have ever seen the amount of money to afford me, so stop calling me 'sunshine'."

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"Both of you stop having pissing contests or I'll make sure neither of you can talk." She points warningly at them both.

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Sand's com churps.

"Greetings program!"

It may sound like she's being sarcastic, but really, she's calling from school or some other place she can't talk from. She worked out the code with most of the Outsiders before this point.

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But it's funny! "Hello moto."

Please oh please let this info get them to the end of this already. "Bet I'm having more fun than you. Find out anything interesting in chem 2?"

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"Sure. Compared it with Professor T's notes on the subject. Just a guess, he's been hiking somewhere on the outlands. The mud looks normal enough until you get into the Einsteinium." She lowers her voice significantly. "Well, sort of Einsteinium."

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"I don't think there's any way for me to say this without looking like an idiot-- bwah?"

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Another pause as she says goodbye to another student, then...

"The truth is alchemical stuff works just differently enough to be annoying. What comes up a magically charged particle matter registers as heavy isotopes that behave like a headache." Someone apparently has been reading up on their alchemy and doing some conversions. "Outlands of Hell, not far from the surface. Try and ask Bobo if there's a gate somewhere around where they once dropped warheads, because that's where you want to start."

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"Sure ask the chimp, not like he spends half his bloody life walkin' around there." He rolls his eyes.

"Only a few places like that, once the hairy git an I check it with some maps we'll get you where you want t'be." Because he doesn't have maps of Hell but Papa Midnight does and right now since Midnight's a bunny rabbit he's got full access to the workshop.

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"Are we gonna have to use the leylines to get there, or can Captain Charisma here just use his inter-dimensional Slice-O-Matic?" Trevor is afraid of very few things, and willing to admit to being afraid of even fewer things, but being stuck in the leylines still makes him wake up sweating over a year later. If there's an alternative, Hotshot will take it.

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John holds the sword up and they can see the damage done to it from being stuck in something's guts to open a dimension.

"Might could do it. Wouldn't want to if I don't have to or we might slice o matic ourselves a bit."

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Corrine's eye twitches a bit. "Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Hotshot."

Back to Tara. "Check, and thanks. We're gonna crack some info out of somewhere and be on our way." And the pleasant little band. "Wish us luck, and not 'break a leg'."

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Trevor holds his hands up defensively, and looks very seriously at Corrine.

"It's nothing against you. It's not your fault the leylines are creepy as Hell. The point remains, however, that they are.

"I'm just saying."

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John left on his own to check out the leads. He's not taking the chimp with him to do research. For one thing he'd have to explain why he's researching in Papa Midnight's private sanctum. Then he'd probably have to explain the whole Midnight's a bit of a coney right now and really he doesn't want anyone knowing he was in on that. Word tends to get out and the longer Midnight is a bunny the longer he gets to borrow his stuff.

There are certain things that will not let him take them out of the sanctum and the relief maps of hell are on that list. But once he's in with the information given and able to cross reference with what Tara gave them in the way of clues he can come up with an area fairly rapidly.

Besides this gave him a break from Sunshine and the rest who were fair bent on driving him nutters before this was all over.

Once he'd got his answers he appropriated a couple more things from the sanctum (he had to return or replace everything so he didn't do this often) and went by his holding shed to get one more item.

If it was going to come down to a pissing contest between them and the demon...well it paid to have the biggest piece of equipment didn't it? The Ace of Winchesters was tucked up under his coat for the trip back. He didn't want to use it because it was bad for people to know it was in his possession but damn if it came down to it he wanted it around just in case.

"All right lads an lasses, got us some coordinates. Who's up for a trip t'Hell?"

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"You know, I've had a lot of people tell me to go to Hell, but I don't think it's ever been phrased in the form of a question before."

Trevor shucks his jacket off, guessing that warmth won't be a problem in hell, and as thick as the leather is, he doubts that will be any help. The backpack of toys comes with, though.

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"It's the vacation place for all the elite nowadays don't you know?" Really with Mammon it is, corrupting and bringing wealth brings all the socialites to Hell's door eventually.

"Just remember fire doesn't actually hurt a lot of demons an you'll be fine."

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Trevor's grin is nothing short of malicious. He knows the flash bangs and napalm grenades are unlikely to do much, but there's a present for Caleb buried in the middle of them. Just a little something Cal asked him to hold on to in case of an emergency.

"No, but getting hit with things the size of a pickup truck usually makes a nice squishy noise."

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He rolls his eyes just a bit while lighting his silk cut.

"Try not t'be so damn enthusiastic."

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Chimp grins and slaps Trevor on the back. "Yeah. Try to be more like Constantine. After all, he's loved by millions."

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Trevor looks at Constantine, his smile disappearing.

"It's not enthusiasm. I just take people dragging my best friend to Hell kind of personally."

To Bobo, Trevor's grin reappears.

"Hey, he gave me a smoke. He's okay in my book."

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"Yeah, but knowing Johnny, he probably did it so you'd die of cancer sooner." The chimp throws them both a wink.

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Corrine actually shares Trevor's enthusiasm to not go onto the leylines, at least for this particular endeavor. It's more for the fact that she gets to play guide than any sort of fear; she's actually gotten around to stopping that whole 'flinching' thing. For the most part.

She looks at Amelia. The girl's been stuck like a tick, but much more quiet after Tefe's threat. Corrine mentally logs that, for what reason she isn't quite sure of at the time. Fact is, though, Constantine's right. Amelia can't go. She says it softly. Make it a suggestion. "Amelia, I really think you need to chill with Tara."

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"Of course you do."

Amelia's just been set back against a wall, a backpack full of crawler pieces in her lap. She's fiddling with some wiring and gumming up the end of an unlit cigarette.

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He's about had it with Sunshine over there, arrogant piece of work that's reminding him a lot of her relatives right now.

"Might want t'listen Sunshine, it'll make this easier."

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"Well that's not arguing, really," Corrine says, folding her arms. "And it might help if you'd stop patronizing her with condescending names."

A sigh. "Whether you believe it or not, we're dedicated to getting your brother back. The majority of us are. Look, whatever, we're gonna get this done. But someone who's allergic to magic here is-- well, you're smart enough. Really. Cut me some slack here. Something happens to you and it's a bad thing all around."

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Amelia keeps her mind focused on the wires. "Fine, whatever, I get it. Logic and all."

Her eyes flick up for a moment. She's got her own reasons, having thought it over, that her accompaniment is problematic. Whatever. If they don't get Caleb back to her they'll have to tell her, and better to deal with that when it comes to it. At least Tara is a better example than the shining endorsement of humanity as this cheerful bunch. "I don't teleport. Feel free to 'whoosh' me away."

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