Shot in the Dark
28th of January 2007 A.D.
"Get the these people out of here, Nergui" you bark, deflecting a claw before half-swording a Hound through the neck, ripping its essence apart even as Lydia's bolts takes another in the face. "And get into cover!" As you speak, two miles above your head the world bends to your will, concentrating a shaft of sunlight around your location, and through the portal into depths of the Wicked City that had never before felt its touch. You grapple the suddenly limp weight of the Hound, as Lash detonates another flashbang in the face of the attackers, and then you hurl it like a missile through the Gate.
As the light of the sun ringed with the corona to Tiffany's wings burns into the depths of hell the darkness seems to feed into the rider upon the black horse making him seem more lordly yet not full of terror, a guide in dark places perhaps holding a pale lantern when all other lights had gone out. What words he speaks to the crowd of people you could not say, but for the briefest moment as he turns see a laughing stone face in place of his own, pitted by the sands of time, but still whole.
There is something eerie about the way people move to his command, still caught in the midst of spiritual exaltation, all these people who had moments before been going about their ordinary lives now playing the parts of supplicants to an heir of accursed god kings. He's commanding them to take shelter sure, but he could just as easily command them to open their veins and they would do it just as readily.
"OK, hang in there, just need to mare sure this closes safely and then we can go home," you mutter to yourself and for about a minute it looks like it will be uncontested, the only things able to get to the gate in time sun hating akuma, or else unwilling to risk whatever the heck had blown a hole into hell.
On mature consideration it is probably for the best that I did not use this gate to get to the Mothers.
Then you start to feel an uncomfortable heat on your chest the armor cracking a little under the heat. They'd forged an elemental mirror to reflect the sun outward like a cruel kid with a magnifying glass at you... and no just you. Even without turning your head you know the cardboard shelter behind you would be smoking, if not on fire already.
"Lydia, Tiff..." you start, but the latter interrupts.
"Just make it snow, it won't be any more noticeable than the sun-bending. "
And that is how it starts snowing sheets on the outskirts of Dhaka. Somehow you do not think the fact that it's late January is going to cover it.
Thank God you only have to take up up for two more minutes before the gate cycles closes.
"Something passed," Tiffany calls out. "Like metal and bile in the back of my throat."
Personally I'd say like a grasshopper made of knives and tendons, you think, sight deepening until you glimpse not light, but the emanations of the soul. There's four of them and you are starting to run dry on Essence.... but they don't know that. All they can see are the burning eyes and the sword of flame.
Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 2/15 Hellscry Chakra and Excellency
"Hear me spirits of Yomi, 'demons' by your master's will!" The words boom out like a great brass bell. "At your back through a gate imperishable stretch chains think as the coils of dragons, anchored by the weight of mountains. Out of that world into this you have been bid to stalk and to slay twisting and tormenting..." Very deliberately you do not even pause for breath when you feel as much as see one of the hunter-killer demons try to saw their way through your armor, to get at your throat. "To share your pain with mortals who have not been blighted as you have been, unworthy pets of a foolish Sovereign, but there is ever more pain in the City, no matter how much you give ever shall you receive."
Vaguely you are aware of Lash saying something that sounds like 'absolutely mad', but you pay it even less attention than the attempted homicide, or the fact that the other three are also positioning themselves to pile on and pull you out of the sky.
"Now with the passing of the gate, now with the dimming of the False Star you may choose different."
Indeed the gate begins to close at once seeming to fold inwards and grow smaller and more distant, wandering away until you or another with the proper authority should call it.
The demons still invisible to ordinary sight stop and scuttle away. They do not say anything.., and then you realize no one would have built a voice-box into their kind, they are only meant to kill.
"Clippy, do you have a connection to the rest of the network?" you ask.
"Affirmative," comes the answer, just a little slower and more static-y than you expected. Even she's getting tired.
I'll deal with the head pounding later, you reason. "Connect and see what they have to say."
"Terms?" the words seem to drip out of the speakers unpleasantly.
"Don't hurt anyone and you get bodies with voice boxes, bodies that
don't hurt with every twitch-motion."
"Temporary Agreement."
Gained 4 Hunter Killer Drones
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 4/15 (Urge of the Forbidden)
"Does that happen often?" An unfamiliar voice asks, unfamiliar because it does not sound like steel bellows. Joe Magarac is human sized now, 'professional weight-lifting human' granted, but at least he wold fit through most doors.
"Often enough," Lyda and Tiffany say at the same time, the first sounding elated, the second even more tired than you feel.
As you too fade to human form it's time to consider an exit strategy... and if you should tell anyone what you just did.
Before stepping into Sanctuary as a means to get back to Chicago do you call anyone with the good news?
[] Lilly, sure the Summer Court were doing this as a favor to you but you are sure they will appreciate
[] The White Council... you're not sure who operates in Bangladesh, but they would probably use a heads up of what happened
[] The Local Wu of the Jade Court. Nergui claims they are not the most welcoming, but they will respect power at least and he is willing to do this one last thing for you
[] No one, smug and mysterious s a good tactic when you just overturned the order of things, at least according to Tiffany
[] Write in
OOC: Congrats you are now the proud liege of one Bakemono technician, fifteen traumatized lesser iron elementals and four hunter killer drones that really do not want to be in those bodies anymore. Also you got to see Nergui's final artifact not because he rolled badly, but because he rolled absurdly well. He could found a cult right now if he wanted to. 
