jla_watchtower | Hooray and other happy horse...

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Hooray and other happy horse...

Amelia's coming down from the house fast enough that if she trips, she'll probably blow her knee out. She doesn't much care about the property. Seeing that demon-thing-- the size-- and watching the Outsiders dance round after round with it...

The panic's no more than a constant dinging in her head. It sounds a bit like an oven timer. She pushes it back, slowing as she comes across a patch of destroyed crawlers. She almost looks like she's going to cry.

"Anybody hurt?" but it's a bit half-hearted.

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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."

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."

"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?"

"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."

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."

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?"

"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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

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.

"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."

"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.

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."

"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."

"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."

"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.

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'."

"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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Hooray and other happy horse...

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