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Triumphant return
#31
She laughed; it was a dark, bitter sound. "I was under the impression your people disposed of the things that don't belong. Yet you're willing to allow one of them to waltz out the front door? Even if he is White."
A brow rose in amusement; it was clear she was playing with him, but the claws were retracted, and the swipes more curious than cruel. The man was Atharim, but she suspected he was also something else. It was the only reason she lingered.

He leaned in to whisper more warnings. Ori understood the risks, but she'd squeeze the blade tighter before letting go. The gamble fired her blood. Her voice hushed to match his, her focus intent. "People die in war. And war this will be. Your people kill children because of gifts they barely understand."

"I can only think of one reason you'd assume you knew what he is. Are you sure you belong here?"

She finally stepped back. The answer mattered little - he'd be a fool to admit it. But she wanted him to know she suspected, to feel the secret unravelling around him, to stab panic in his heart. Only to soothe those feelings with a grin. "I don't care for trinkets. But you should come with us."
"You say you're a godman. So what? 
I'm the devil herself"
Alpha ~ Little Destroyer
[Image: orianderis.jpg]
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#32
Eliot smiled so she knew or at least suspected what he was. Different at least. "Going with you would doom my family. Staying dooms my family. They won't care where the money comes from. Dead is dead. It is how we believe. And the only way a god should be left - him and his family."

There was rushing all about. Eliot sighed. "You must leave now. If there is still time." Eliot looked around and new something had happened. Either security was alerted or something worse had happened. Did the mission fail? Eliot took the woman by the arm. "Leave now. Or you will both be dead with in the hour."
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#33
Fake White left Oriena and the runt behind, disappearing around the corner that the runt had initially pulled them inside to issue his warning. Fake White didn't give a flying fuck about the kid, but Jaxen was intrigued. There were more important things to do than fish the secrets out of some Atharim runt, though. Besides, Oriena had him in her clutches. Poor kid was unlikely to survive the encounter.

He passed a pair of regular Atharim in the hall. Both men gave him a curt nod as they came in arm's reach, but Fake White didn't fail to notice how they stepped ever so slightly aside to allow him through.

Damn. White had a reputation. The guy was scary as shit. No wonder.

The paper-thin mini-Wallet was tucked safely away inside his jacket, bearing the files he had managed to copy. Like always, only the rare and unique were the most valuable items in the world. That had been the extent of his interest in history: sweeping museums for anything that caught his eye. Like Maximilian's sword. That thing was gaudy as hell. He was sad it was gone. It took a shit ton of work to swipe it in the first place.

But now, his mind itched to research the things he briefly saw in the files. Like that Sword of Light. Apparently he was into swords. Who knew?

He recalled his first attempt to breech a bank vault. At the time he had no interest in the money or safety deposit boxes inside. It had been about practice. Vaults dated back to the times of the Egyptians, and surprisingly, the older ones were sometimes harder to penetrate than the newer ones. Modern day vaults depended on biometrics, electronics, circuits and servers. Things that could break down. But it took more than deft fingers and a quick mind to hack your way through a meter of steel-door, or drill through steel reinforced concrete walls. Entire buildings were renovated around those old vaults simply because they couldn't be destroyed. They'd probably outlast nuclear war.

So Jaxen didn't know if the Atharim had such a vault or whether it would be ancient or modern. But he knew what to look for. The walls surrounding vaults had to be reinforced to accommodate the weight of the structure. The typical wooden studs of a framing would be interrupted. Seams in the drywall were ever so subtly visible, if only by the way the paint dried differently at the interface.

In either case, he quickly found the entrance to a rather intriguing room. Nobody guarded the exterior, so he quickly checked the handle. Locked. meaning the Atharim relied on brute strength or modern technology to keep unwanted guests out.

Fake White seized a thread of power, warping fire and earth into a drill that penetrated the door. He stood there apparently studying the door for defects while Jaxen's mind worked to dismantle the interior mechanism. A ghost of a smile touched his lips when he heard a click.

He pushed the door open and closed it behind him inside.

He was in some sort of armory. Interesting room. Guns, edged weapons, shit he had no idea what they did were displayed, many behind glass cases. He had no interest in weapons, although some of the swords looked bad ass. Instead, he pulled the mini Wallet and snapped a quick video of the room's contents. If the Atharim were preparing for war, Jaxen found their war room. No sense in letting it go undocumented. He put the mini Wallet away.

He quickly walked the room's interior, searching for the signs of vault panels behind the walls. That was when he saw the vaguest scraping along the edge of one weapon's glass case that indicated it had been moved back and forth on occasion.

It was easy to shove aside, and when he did, he smiled at the door of a safe embedded in the wall behind.

The best way to breech a vault, or safe, was a powerful tool called a "burning bar" or "thermic torch." It burned liquid oxygen like a torch, but much much hotter than the typical hardware store acetylene torch. The thief makes a series of small holes that can eventually be linked to form a gap used to disable the interior mechanisms.

Jaxen didn't have such a torch on him, but he had something far better. Fire, pure molten fire stabbed the metal, superheating it bright red. The heat of it beaded sweat in Fake White's face. But a couple minutes later, three bore holes opened into the door interior. After that, it was a simple matter of destroying the mechanism with ropes of earth and fire to unlock it.

He smiled victoriously as the door swung free, but the smile was short lived, replaced with disappointment.

No shiny baubles. No interesting code books. Just a pile of rocks, which he moved aside with one arm, toppling them over. There was a stack of old coins. Probably valuable, but Jaxen didn't care about antiques some grandma might collect. There was a folded piece of parchment, but he didn't recognize the language. Some kind of tablet that he shoved aside. And a piece of tusk that reminded him of the narwhal staff taken from his apartment. That thing had been cool. It had been taken from the same museum that once housed the Archduke's sword. All these carvings had been inlaid in it. Kind of like the scrimshaw that Manix sought.

Scrimshaw.

He pulled the flute of tusk out and looked it over more carefully. Shapes were carved into it now that he looked, so worn down as to be barely visible. They looked like letters, or hieroglyphs maybe, trunks, hooks, branches and tent shapes. Two columns of shapes were etched side by side, almost like a cipher.

One shape caught his eye, and he laid his fingers across it carefully. It was the shape of an X laid centered across a square turned on one corner like a diamond.

The shape made him smile, but he didn't know why.

Not shapes, though, maybe runes.

He licked his lips and tucked the tusk inside his jacket. It was much smaller than the firearm and draw no attention to its presence.

Just for good measure he took another picture of the safe's contents, and grabbed one of the rocks, which was more of a pebble anyway, and deposited it in a pocket.

He closed the door and shoved the glass case back in place. Nobody would know the safe had been disturbed until they next went to open it and find the pilot holes.

He slipped back into the hall, careful to not let anyone see him emerge from the armory, and went in search of more goodies.

He found a woman sitting outside what appeared to be an office. It would be no problem at all to tie her up and toss her inside while he browsed at his leisure, but commotion echoed from the distance, and Jaxen knew it was time to go.

He had no idea what happened to Oriena. And he would prefer they leave together, but he was sure she'd save herself if she had to. Just like Jaxen would too.

He made for the elevator without sparing the two guards so much as a second glance. But as he waited for the elevator to open, he saw movement in the reflection of the door panels.

He grabbed the power, ready to bind them down with ropes of air as Tarin had done to him, and turned.

But the man had only gotten up to go to the bathroom. Fake White smirked at the remaining man and got on the elevator.

Thirty seconds later, he walked out of the building without so much as having to tie anyone up. It was almost disappointing how easy it was.

The sun had set by then. But the city was never dark nor empty. Jaxen took the first opportunity he had to remove Fake White from his face about half a mile away from Baccarat.

Still no Oriena, but he was dying to see the monument made by the Ascendancy. Just as he turned into the clearing of the Red Square, an ambulance was leaving the Kremlin gates.

He frowned and decided to return later. For now, he wanted to get back to Manix's brownstone.

He'd call Oriena later. If she was still alive. But he didn't doubt her for a second.





Edited by Jaxen Marveet, Feb 3 2018, 09:57 PM.
"So?" said Loki impatiently.  "This isn't the first time the world has come to an end, and it won't be the last either."
Jaxen +
Loki +
+ Jole +
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#34
"If someone threatens you, you defend yourself. If they threaten your family, you protect them. What you don't do is allow the fear to control you. We are not prey."


She absorbed his words and picked out the little bits of information for later, brows daggering low. As if murdering children was not enough - the Atharim must eradicate an entire line? She spat her disgust. He took her by the arm, and Ori didn't stop him. The man's demeanour was tight with a concern that only fizzed her veins with adrenaline. The power continued to wreathe in her peripheral, feeding strength and recklessness. The patterns tightened. But the fiery prisms did not yet release.

"If you really believed it, you would not be standing here. And you can't be the only one with such an interesting secret. Discover the others before your Regus does. Rebellion takes but a tiny spark."
She winked. "The world is changing. Find a new belief."


Her gaze glittered as she sewed those seeds, calculating gears turning in her head, only to abruptly spin back to the present chaos. She smirked. "White got me in. You may have noticed that he's gone. I need you to punch the code in the elevator. Unless you know another way out."
"You say you're a godman. So what? 
I'm the devil herself"
Alpha ~ Little Destroyer
[Image: orianderis.jpg]
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#35
Eliot pulled himself tighter together. He wasn't a coward! "I don't stay quiet out of fear, Miss. I stay quiet because I know what voicing things will do to my family."

But she was right there were others like him. Digging into them could work, but it could back fire - put everyone at risk. Eliot sighed and pulled the woman away from the elevators. "The elevators will be locked down by now. You can't get out that way."

Eliot smiled. "I can get you out. No one will know you were here."

Eliot lead the way through several winding halls, they were little used and some were never used. They were narrow cement walls with nothing really of consequence. The hall ended abruptly and Eliot touched several places. A door slide back and Eliot pushed it open. "This will take you into the tunnels below the city."
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#36
"Silence doesn't protect your family. You can't change what you are, and you can't lie about it forever."


It occurred to her that he might betray her presence -- might in fact be leading her anywhere. She only had assumption that he was a godling after all; she couldn't actually tell, the way she could with women. But she followed anyway, leaving tight knots of shining power in her wake, like tiny fallen pyramids. Small trails of smoke wisped where they fell, barely discernible at first; the flames kindled insidiously slow. It would be several minutes before they fully combusted.

He was wrong about no-one knowing she'd been here.

Her hands trailed the unadorned cement when they traversed empty corridors, and she finally dropped her hold on the power. She meant to leave a message with the destruction, not burn foxes out of a hole, and she didn't intend for Eliot to become ensnared in the flames. He was far more useful alive.

At the revealed door, Ori peered into the darkness. "I owe you a thank-you."
She contemplated the escape a moment more before she turned to face him, smiling. He'd taken a risk -- a huge one, despite having his own secrets to protect. Ori was grateful, but she did hate to be in another's debt. She was inclined to pay back the favour straight away. Which was why she wrenched her fist back and punched him squarely in the face. There was muscle behind the hit, and the tight precision of one accustom to the action. His head snapped back.

"We fought. You were very valiant. But you're still just a man, and what chance does a man stand against a god?"


Ori would keep his secret, and help him to do the same. She smirked, wiping blood on her thigh. "Remember you have friends, if you want them. I'm sure you'll be able to find me if you change your mind."


She didn't wait for an answer; a second later, she was gone.
"You say you're a godman. So what? 
I'm the devil herself"
Alpha ~ Little Destroyer
[Image: orianderis.jpg]
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#37
Eliot felt his nose break. His head snapped back and he could swear he almost felt his neck snap. He fell to the ground confused at her words. But as his head blurred with the blood loss he understood and he thanked her silently to himself.

Eliot crawled to the door and closed it behind her and fell against the wall. Being a weak fraile creature was something he was used to, but he felt good knowing a god just got the better of the Atharim. Maybe they wouldn't all die in the flames of the Atharim's ire.
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#38
The day of the Brandon's little...demonstration...well, that was the day the mansion came to a stop. Everyone was watching at any screen available. Moments of silence hung in the air before being broken by angry and hushed or scared words.

Jacinda had been sitting at a terminal, looking over the list of potential gods, hoping to find another target. Course Barovsky would be the one to actually choose- damn, but it was hard to work as part of a team. She just didn't like not being in charge of herself. Maybe a team of 2. She'd done that a lot of times.

She knew she worked well with Gunnar. He was a lot like Seth, in that regard. Gung ho about whatever they were doing. Fearless. Except Seth was still too soft. Just didn't have the balls to do what needed to be done. She got it, of course. It had been his niece. Still, what a risk to take, however it had turned out. And yet, for all that, he was a good guy. And on a normal monster hunt, she'd have called him up in a heartbeat. But he'd been MIA for a while. She wasn't sure why. She'd gotten the impression, from his words when he'd picked her up from the airport, that he wasn't too fond of the Regus. Well, the man was strict, it was true. Hard. Unyielding. And she, of all people, didn't care much for rules. But he represented order. What the Atharim meant. So she was willing to follow him. But Seth, well, he had all but disappeared. He was out.

But maybe there was Yoshi, too, once he got that sword out of his ass and learned how to relax. So yeah, a two person team would work. It was the structure- and to be honest, Barovsky himself- that grated on her.

Course she couldn't complain now. Not after she had all but forced herself in the Order. That would look stupid. She could only imagine the Regus looking at her with those cold blue eyes. It didn't exactly frighten her. No. Not really. But she really didn't want to go through that. So she was stuck. She'd made her bed. Guess she needed to lay in it.

So she had been doing research when she noticed the commotion. Curious, she wandered over to one of the displays. And watched in horror as Brandon cemented everything the Atharim believed. Everything. She shook her head. Yeah, she knew he was Apollyon. The Regus had announced it. She "knew" that. But the guy was there proclaiming himself a god. The power. It would always do this. She ground her teeth. Man, but he needed to die- like yesterday. She laughed to herself as she suddenly could imagine the Regus and Martin's reaction.

In fact, the more she dwelt on that, the more certain she became that they would not be sitting down for this. She felt excitement well up in her gut. Oh yeah! It was on now! They would be planning something. She just knew it. They would be feeling the anger and hunger to put him down that she did, if not more. She was betting the Regus was. The hunt. She felt that desire, the thrill fill her.

She messaged Yoshi and Gunnar that something might be up and to meet her at the Regus' office. They would know what she meant. Damn but she felt good now. A hunt. A real god-damn hunt. For the biggest prick in the world. She could almost envision it as she walked the hallways and past doors, until she came to the Regus' office. Or rather, the office of his secretary, a priest in black robes. Always reminded her of a crow or a Raven.

"Is the Regus available?"
she asked. The man's face looked a little startled. No, she didn't imagine many people came looking for the man. He was...disconcerting. Yeah. That was the word.

"No. He has left the building. I do not know when he will return, but you may leave a message for him." She frowned. Left? He left? Now, of all times. It made no sense. He wouldn't leave when they had a job to do. She knew the man that well. Unless....no. He wouldn't do that. No. No way.

But she went to Barovsky's office and he was gone too. Suspicion began to grow. She thought back to their sparring. And the girl. There was something about the girl. The Regus was interested in her for some reason. Not that way. No. He never seemed interested in women that way. Or men for that matter. No. More like she was a project. Or a tool. Or a bug. She'd seen the way he looked at her. Martin too, though Martin was always pissy about something. A check revealed she was gone too.

She didn't like this. Not at all. All three gone? Now? Now of all times?!?! She didn't peg the guy for a moron. Not at all. But this...why take her? It was inconceivable the girl had gone off on her own. She knew what house-arrest looked like.

Her wallet buzzed. Gunnar was wondering where she was. He'd gone to meet her at the Regus' office. More and more this made no sense. They met up in the library and she confided to him what she was thinking. His eyebrows drew down at her words and his fingertips thrummed on the table.

Finally, "No. The Regus wouldn't have done that. I cannot believe it. He created our order for that very reason. To hunt the gods. He must be planning an assault for later. It's the only thing that makes sense."

Jacinda nodded. Yeah, it made a kind of sense. Still..."What about Barovsky? The sentient? Why would they be gone?"


Gunnar thought and then said, "Barovsky hates her. You and I saw that much. Maybe he's taken her somewhere. I don't know. We don't really know anything. Except that we will need to be ready soon." He stood up. "IWe should get our gear. Check our weapons, especially the new ones. And practice. Because I am guessing when the Regus or Barovsky return, we need to be armed for bear and ready to go."

And so that was what they did, for a few hours anyway, first in the armory and then in the makeshift range that had been set aside for them. She expected Yoshi would show sooner rather than later. The man was dedicated to his honor, that was for sure.

It was then that she heard the alarms blaring through the room. The code said fire. She looked at Gunnar and immediately ran for the door.
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#39
A message came on Ichiro's wallet. A message from Cross - wanting him to meet outside the Regus' office. He wondered what she wanted. Probably something to do with the Ascendancy's announcement.

He moved quickly though the compound. Duty was duty. When he arrived, Cross wasn't there - typical of her to set a meeting and then leave. A priest stood there and Ichiro approached him. "Did Jacinda Cross come by here?"


He nodded. She went that way." he indicated.

Ichiro thanked him with a bow and moved in that general election. As he walked down the hall, he pulled out his wallet, he was heading in the direction of the range - so he thought he would check there before messaging her back.

An alarm went off. There was a fire. Ichiro frowned and pulled his wallet out to call Cross. He didn't have to though. He saw her in the range. He opened the door. "Let's go."
he said quickly. He had his suspicions that this had something to do with the Ascendancy, but fighting in a burning building was just plain dumb.
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#40
Jacinda was sprinting down one of the halls, trying to figure out where the fire was with her wallet. Stupid codes. She didn't know them yet. Not like she didn't have other things to do. Gunnar ran next to her and nodded his head to the left passage. "Basement level, this way," Gunnar yelled over the alarm.

As they moved, one of the doors opened and there was Yoshimura. The three of them headed of in the indicated direction. She was glad Gunnar was there. Not that she didn't have a good sense of direction. Now that she was down there, even running through the halls to the basement, she knew she'd be able go back the way they'd came. Chasing down prey through forests or cave systems was a good way to get yourself killed if you couldn't figure a way out. She simply had never been down here. They passed a stairwell and she jammed her elbow into the glass for the extinguisher.

Finally, they found the source of the alarm. Well, it wasn't that hard. The smoke crawling along the sides and roof of the halls was a dead giveaway, once they reached the basement level. And it was 'sources', rather than 'source'. Looked like a handful of fires had started on the wood floors at spaced intervals. The ones closest to them were the largest, having expanded so that their flames were already licking the sides of deeply stained carved wood walls and wainscoting. The heat pouring down the hall immediately beaded sweat all over her even as she dropped to her knees and squinted her eyes.

She sprayed the first down each side and toward the center and while the flames surrounding it slackened to nothing, there in the center was a white hot ball of fire. She covered it with supressive foam and yet it continued to burn. She looked at Gunnar and Yoshi with surprise. Was that some sore of accelerant? But fire suppression removed access to oxygen. How as this burning?

She increased the foam and finally- finally- the stupid thing went out. Only now the next one had grown to really be going off. And she had used a lot of the foam. She stood and jumped over the char and nearly slipped on the foam that covered everything as she went through the smoke that was filling the hall from the top down. She coughed but pressed on.

This time she concentrated on the white hot ball first, hoping she had enough. Looking at Yoshimura and Gunnar, she shook her head, squinting, eyes already cloudy. "Any better ideas?"
she asked, coughing through the smoke.
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