With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
08:03 GMT

Demonic sorcerers under the direction of Agony and Ecstasy chant, and portals to the other provinces of Hell open wide. Then Mammon-as-Satanus strides through one to Limbo about a half-second before Neron stalks through the one to Gull, arm in arm with Rosacarnis. He's dressed as a knight, kaahuite plate covered with a green surcoat. She's wearing a dress, runic symbols which hurt my eyes stitched into the fabric. Neron shoots Mammon a look of utter fury, while Mammon smiles politely and waves back. Rosacarnis merely nods, then the three of them head towards Mr Hayes, Mr Free and me.

"Orange Lantern!" Mammon's smile grows as he gets to within hailing distance. "I see that even Hell itself is not free of the havoc you create!"

Behind him, portals widen as soldiers begin marching through. Stercorax rides some sort of demonic insect-rhino at the head of a column of damned souls wearing what looks like grey power armour and carrying long-barrelled guns. Neron's soldiers on the other hand are more orc-like; hulking brutes armed with melee weapons and shields whose surfaces ripple with the power of the demonic spells bound to them. All of which will go dead if anything happens to Neron himself. A third column of mechanical and cybernetic… Things comes through another portal, the wraith-like form of Richard Simpson darting from war machine to war machine with gleeful energy. Other columns emerge from the other portals and move to occupy the positions indicated by the demonic civil servants who came here from Pandemonia with the Twins.

"I do worship Eris, my lord. A certain amount of chaos is to be expected."

Neron looks down at me contemptuously. "You are the one whom the entire Host of Heaven is pursuing? Such a small thing to cause such a great excitement."

I grin. "Thank you for coming, Arch-Duke Neron. I really appreciate it. It's a massive help to me, and I'm astonished at your generosity."

He and Mammon share a look, while Rosacarnis raises her right eyebrow. Breath hisses through his teeth. "We do not do this for you, fool. But handing you over to the lickspittles of the Silver City… Helping them, is inconceivable. Ejecting you amounts to the same thing. And if we killed you, they would simply come for your soul. And for the Host to have the temerity to invade our realm…"

Mammon nods. "The governance of Hell is… In dispute. Even before you slew the First, his power never entirely recovered from his defeat at the hands of John Constantine. There's not even any real consensus on who the forerunners are."

Neron's eyes burn with green flame. "Me."

Rosacarnis lays her right hand on his shoulder. "Calm yourself, your highness. You will have more than enough opportunities to demonstrate your strength this day."

Mammon nods cheerfully. "Which is rather the point. We're all strong within our own domains, but there is no real avenue to expand, to seize one another's territory and claim the Crown of Horns. Any of us who try-" He glances at Neron. "-get our knuckles rapped."

There's a sort of electric buzz as Mr Simpson appears. "It's a giant, demon, cock-waving contest! Whose is biggest?! Who knows how best to roger angels with it?! And who can do it when everybody's watching? Because if there's one thing demons respect, it's killing angels."

Mr Hayes smiles faintly. "Harm has no interest in either the crown or in waving his genitals. Harm is simply here to kill servants of God."

I nod. "You can't rule if no one is prepared to obey you. The lord who achieves the most, who demonstrates themselves to be in the most commanding position, will start getting pledges of loyalty from those who aren't strong enough to make their own claim. That will snowball… And Hell will have a new sovereign."

Mammon nods. "I'd thank you for the opportunity… But then afterwards I'd have to cut off my own lips."

"I don't believe that I've heard of the Crown of Horns."

Rosacarnis waves her right hand negligently. "After the Great Darkness rose, Lucifer agreed to share power with Beelzebub and Azazel in order to restore some semblance of stability to Hell. They both demanded that he forge them a crown to reflect their new status. So he did: one crown, which he suggested they share. Since they couldn't, it was left on a pedestal next to Lucifer's throne."

"Demons not being able to share was how John Constantine tricked the First, Second and Third into curing his lung cancer. It's a pretty big psychological weakness."

Neron's eyes narrow. "Mortals may consider you wise-" I can't help but shake my head. "-but you clearly know little of Hell."

"You guys know that I killed the First, right?"

Rosacarnis looks at me almost pityingly. "The succession is not simply a matter of killing your predecessor. The First did not kill Lucifer, and neither Remiel nor Duma killed him."

"What happened to them, anyway?"

The assembled demon lords look at one another, and snigger. Mammon shakes his head. "Never you mind. Simpson, are the Exegesis Guild going to make a showing?"

He wobbles his head from side to side. "Their mouths say 'yes', their troop movements say 'no'."

Neron's lip curls. "I'm not surprised. They've grown truculent and useless. I'm sure that the First only granted them their charter as a slight to Belial."

Mr Simpson nods. "You'll get no argument from me. I had to leave a good portion of my force behind in case they decide to pull anything, and I know what that does to my chances."

Neron nods. "I believe that it is firmly in Hell's interests that they be put in their place, once this is done."

Mammon nods. "Obviously. Any prince of Hell who won't respond to an external invasion is unworthy of their office."

"What are our chances?"

Neron sneers. "I don't much care what your chances are. But we've all been preparing for this. We've all been eagerly awaiting the day when we can overrun the Silver City and achieve dominion over the Earth. And while none of us were ready for it to happen today, we are more than capable of drowning the angels in their own blood."

"Glad to hear it." I take the Hellblazer off its harness and hold it out. "Would this help?"

Neron rolls his eyes. "A lever action rifle? We're not ignorant savage-"

Mr Simpson's eyes light up. "Oooooooooh. What have you done there?"

"-es." He frowns. "What? The kaahuite? Satanus wasn't exactly slow to attack him with it."

"No, the spell." He gestures. "Look at it!"

Rosacarnis cautiously takes the gun and examines the runes. "I believe that I understand. You're using the kaahuite to link anyone struck by the bullets to the Great Void directly. You humans can be so creative."

Mr Simpson's hands glow. "I doubt we'll have time for mass implementation, but if any of you want to pass weapons to my processors I should be able to replicate it." He looks my way. "This is good stuff, this is. Sephtian's design?"

"Technically, my design, which he checked and his employees enchanted, based on the work of whoever it was who created the Ace of Winchesters." I frown. "He ended up down here, didn't he? Which of you.. got him?"

Their eyes dart to one another's faces, their expressions carefully neutral. Mr Simpson shrugs and Rosacarnis returns her attention to me as Mammon and Neron's eyes meet and neither of them want to be the one to look away first.

"That will also be a matter to investigate once the Host are dealt with."

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
08:19 GMT

"…avenged yourselves upon those who tormented you, but have you spared a thought for those who so callously decreed that you were worthy of such torments?!" Mammon's soldiers are fortifying their positions or setting up support weapons on the lower curtain wall around Masak Mavdil. Nonetheless, he's taking the opportunity to remind anyone who might think of wavering in the face of angels why they're fighting. "Those who gleefully cast down any who did not bow and scrape before them and their laws! I know that all of you believe as I do, that the current state of affairs is cruel and unjust!"

"Fool." Neron sneers, shaking his head. "Appealing to the damned. It is as if he doesn't want the Crown of Horns at all."

Mr Free looks a little amused. "And you think Hell's government should be of the demons, by the demons, for the demons?"

"No, it should be me." He glances at Mr Free and I, weighing up whether it's worth explaining the subject to us or not. "Those are damned souls without the strength to become demons. They are a breath on the wind. Weak, not merely of will but also of magic. Without that armour, without those weapons, a small group of my skirmishers could outfight the whole lot of them. Even with their… Arquebuses, and with the force their armour lends to their bodies, they are weaker both at range and in melee than my own soldiers."

"And in magic?"

He lowers his eyebrows, then chuckles at me. "The damned cannot use magic in Hell. If they could, they would have become demons by now."

I suppose… Most magic users draw power from the world around them, from Earth's natural magic fields. Those aren't accessible here. They should be able to use Hell's magic… Shouldn't they? Goodness knows that enough people on Earth do. Maybe it's something to do with being dead. Or… No. Neron is ancient. He might just be lying to me, or exaggerating, but I doubt that he'd be wrong.

"You don't feel the need to exhort your own troops?"

"My soldiers will fight when I tell them to fight, kill when I tell them to kill and die when I tell them to die." He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Still: it would not hurt to place myself in the van, to show them by personal example why I am their overlord."

There's a puff of green mist, and he's gone. I catch sight of him a moment later, already passing on orders to a demon identified in the Grimoire Verum as Archfiend Pyrus, who bows his head at once.

"So, you're the God of Freedom." Rosacarnis looks at Mr Free with intense curiosity. "It's strange to feel the power of-. You call it the Source, don't you?"

He shrugs. "I grew up on Apokolips. Granny Goodness wasn't big on theology."

"Ah. A pity. But it is strange to feel the magics of the Source from one without wings. We simply must get together once this matter has… Been dealt with."

"Any idea how long we've-" A blood red bonfire flares up a short distance from us. "-got?"

Mammon's soldiers turn to point a score of ectoplasma projectors at it as Mr Cassidy walks through. He starts to raise his trident and then thinks better of it, whistling as he gets a look at the assembled army. "Should I be worried about how fast you put all this together?"

"When you're an Illustres, you just have to be prepared for these things."

Rosacarnis smiles wickedly as she stares at him. "The Spawn of Nebiros. Have you any idea how many of my agents you've banished back here?"

His right hand tightens its grip on the haft of his trident, while his left waves vaguely. "Like… Ten..? Twenty..? You really want to do this now?"

"Whatever power your sponsor gave you, you are not one of us. And you have made it clear that your interests do not align with.. ours." She stops, frowning, and sniffs. "Why do you smell of the stuff of creation?"

"Ate a fruit from the Garden of Eden. Hey, Lantern-" He turns his head my way. "-I don't think it's working. I'm still finding her attractive."

"Your libido isn't my fault. How are things upstairs?"

"More angels are appearing, and… Excalibris is sending flocks after people like me. We're going to be down a few magicians before this is over."

"Chantinelle?"

He shrugs. "Haven't seen her. But since she isn't exactly a demon any more and she's got the same tattoos as you, she should be okay."

"And Jade? Diana?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I don't know any Jade, and Wonder Woman doesn't tell me what she's doing."

Yeah, that's-.

"Is that a robot?" He's staring in the direction of a large mechanoid with anti-flier gun mounts. "Since when does Hell have robots?"

"Since Richard Simpson finished his apprenticeship after stealing Nergal's..-" I look at Rosacarnis. "-body. That's how you know him."

She remains impassive. "It's hardly a secret. I found what he and Constantine did to my father utterly hilarious."

I nod. "Remember to keep a watch out for giant rats. Your father didn't get to where he was by not having backup plans."

"Oh. That." She smiles. "I thank you for your warning, but the matter has been dealt with. Permanently."

"I'll let John know when I see him. I'm sure it-."

There's a jagged flare of pink light as Agony and Ecstasy teleport to us. Agony's playing with his barbed wire, but Ecstasy looks down at me in fascination.

"Um. I don't know what you're thinking, but I woke up in bed with two women this morning and so there isn't really anything you can offer-."

"You have met the font of all desire."

"What, the Ophidian?" It's hard to see given how the two of them are glowing, but this close I can see where they're both bleeding from the barbs biting into their skin. "Yes, we're fairly-."

Her eyes widen. "He's coming."

I try not to look at her brother, his erect penis, or the barbed wire snaking around it. "I've always.. thought of the Ophidian as female…" I frown. "Though now that you mention it-."

A blinding flare of white light flashes into existence in the wastelands a short distance from the tower! And the sound-! It sort of reminds me of Zauriel's song at KordTech, only-. Piercing and demanding rather than beautiful or inspiring. Winds blast over the defences as soldiers come alert and ready their weapons. I generate railguns and-. And I glance at Mr Free.

"Mister Miracle?" I offer him the Hellblazer. "I imagine that you could benefit from this more than me."

He looks at it for a moment, then shakes his head. "I'll.. see about countering the angels' song."

"But-."

He's already taken off on his aero-discs, moving to take cover behind the towering bulk of Masak Mavdil. Makes.. sense, I suppose. That's his speciality. I turn to Mr Cassidy. "Do you-?"

"I don't know anything about shooting real guns." He takes a two-handed grip on his trident. "I'll stick to th-."

The sound becomes deafening as the angels arrive.

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
08:23 GMT

A flock of twelve angels emerge without particular urgency from the portal, coming to a halt above the desolate plane. One among their number wears a golden torc, and he positions himself at the fore.

"1:1 Denizens of this desolate place! Be it known…"

He takes a moment to look at the entrenchments.

"That…"

Mammon smiles, a small runic communicator in his hand glowing for a moment. "Don't keep me waiting."

The angel backs up slightly. "1:2 Good Lord."

The air between the lines and the angels turns green with fire from the ectoplasma projectors. I lower my rifle slightly as the angels begin to burn, only the two on the far left managing to turn and flee quickly enough to avoid the brunt of the firepower.

"I'm underwhelmed."

Rosacarnis raises her right eyebrow. "Did you believe yourself to be worthy of the full force of Heaven?"

The last two angels have nearly made it back into the portal before Mr Hayes blurs through the air and shoulder barges one of them. I can see his target's outline bend as his bones break. The other survivor turns and sings, and I'm treated to the sight of scintillating white light washing harmlessly off his Daathskin coat.

"Harm does not find It intimidating."

He then drops, grabbing his still-living quarry out of the air before flying back to the air over friendly lines. Local fliers make sure to give him space as he holds his trophy up high, the angel attempting to sing at him with shattered ribs. Mr Hayes shifts his grip in response, left hand on the top of his head and right hand forcibly closing his jaw.

"No." Mr Hayes shakes his head, head tilting slightly to the left as his head gets closer to that of his victim. "No."

Oh.. he.. wasn't joking about.. eating one. I can see the flares of golden fire as the angel's sanctified flesh burns him on the way down, but… He's certainly committed. And I suppose that Aym's indestructibility and Asmodeus's courage help.

"Won't that just weaken him?"

Mr Cassidy grimaces. "I know I'd be pretty weak if someone ate my face. It's like kryptonite or something."

"I mean Mister Hay- Harm. Isn't he using up his magic to keep himself from exploding?"

Rosacarnis shakes her head, watching Harm intensely. "When he seized Labyrinth, I thought that he was someone's stalking horse. At best, a brute of little lasting importance. But I will say without shame that no one else here would dare doing what he is doing. And that everyone admires him for it."

A chunk of shoulder falls to the ground beneath him, a faint gold flame flaring up from the ground where it lands.

"It's always nice to see a happy ending. Why did those idiots just fly into our guns?"

"Even a small flight of angels would be enough to send a disorganised rabble of minor demons running. Even a fell templar like my uncle would hesitate, knowing the price of being singled out. I expect they believed that they could command us to hand you over, or at least intimidate us into revealing your location. But now Hell is unified. Lucifer did not care to do that, the First intentionally avoided it and Remiel and Duma… Could not comprehend. This is new."

"Ah…" Mr Cassidy raises his trident, the head of which is vibrating and glowing. "I don't think Hell's the only ones who-"

For a fraction of a second I see six burning wheels through the portal. And then ohIdidnotknowtheyhadthose! Six… Spaceships..? In pearl and gold armour fly through the portal, their hulls humming and the burning rings which appear to provide their propulsion spinning around four veins near the middle of each vessel. Each one is about six hundred metres long, and as I watch the points where the wheel meets the spokes glow brilliantly-.

Rays of light zigzag out before slamming down into the densest concentrations of defenders. Neron's raised hands glow green and the bolt heading his way fades into nothing, while his soldiers hunker behind their shields as the sigils inscribed on their surfaces light up with eldritch light. Mammon's troops crouch behind rapidly deployed shields of whatever that silver material they wear is, but while Neron's followers appear to be merely knocked to the ground when struck the vengeful damned are torn apart by direct hits. One bolt fired a little after the rest heads for Mammon-

"Harm thinks not."

-before being intercepted by the brutalised remains of the angel Harm was snacking on. That's going to be a problem, though. Mammon can pretend to be Satanus perfectly well. He's got the intelligence, the cunning and the skill. But he doesn't have anything like the raw magical power. He actually can't survive punishment which Satanus could soak up, and if he starts taking hits-. I do not want Hell unified under Neron.

"I want one." There's a flash as Mr Simpson possesses a heavy anti-air emplacement and sets the autoloader clanking into life. "I want them all!"

"Hm." Rosacarnis studies the flying vessels for a moment as they fire again. "The weakest point in the spell matrix is just behind the prow."

I don't hear Mammon's response, but his emplaced cannons open fire only moments after Mr Simpson's flak cannons, black-flecked green smearing itself across the ships' hulls. Most of the initial ectoplasma volley is turned aside by whatever that humming shield is, but the kaahuite slugs have their intended effect and the barrier visibly wavers.

"Ring." I generate a frame for the Hellblazer, targeting the rear ship. "Gravitic accelerator."

Compliance.

"Fire."

BANG!

I blink, a burning blue line which describes an arc in the air between me and the ship I targeted suddenly appearing, the force of the sonic boom forcing Mr Cassidy to shield his face and plant his feet. I hear it as the song around the ship I hit fails-.

Neron grabs a spear from one of his subordinates and hurls it at the ship I hit. The vanguard of the angel's fleet tries to manoeuvre to block it but the accumulated fire it's taken has damaged its motive wheel and its efforts to turn only cause it to wallow and roll. Neron's spear slams into the front of the ship I hit, biting into its armour and spilling toxic green light outwards across its hull. The spear jerks as Neron's own arcane malice causes it to bite deeper and deeper, the green light on the outer hull forming runes of corruption and consumption-.

The ship's fire wheel fails and the ship plummets to the ground, a plume of dust and stone erupting where its crumpling nose meets the rock. A moment later the spear reaches its target and the midsection of the ship explodes in a wave of green fire.

Neron turns his head in my direction, and nods.

Another ship drops out of formation, the singing shield having been broken down enough by the kaahuite shot to allow the ectoplasma fusillade to melt the front portion of the hull to slag. Another volley of light lances out from the wheels of fire, but clusters of demonic sorcerers behind the front lines raise hands glowing with eldritch fire and send clouds of kaahuite dust up to intercept them. The bolts pass through, the light they emit fading until they strike their targets with a mere fraction of their original power.

"Ring. New targ-"

Angels fly out of the blinding light at speed, their bodies covered in gold-coloured armour and burning swords outstretched as they head for the front lines!

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
08:26 GMT

"-et."

A new ship in my sights I fire again, the round passing effortlessly through the shield song even as it shifts pitch in an attempt to block it. Jets of flame from the first wave of angels roar into the first trench line, causing the outgoing fire to drop off to next to nothing as everyone there is forced to drop beneath their shields.

"At last."

There's a disturbingly sexual purr in Harm's voice as he stoops at his first target, and I'm glad that I don't find him attractive any longer. The angel he selected spots him coming and slows in the air, raising their shield as their wingmates cluster closer and raise theirs. They raise their voices, and an aura of white light forms around-.

Harm throws a kaahuite knife, which buries itself in the trachea of the angel on the left. His voice stutters and gurgles as his throat fills with his blood, disrupting the song enough for the focused gout of hellfire from Harm's mouth to get through. Their armour withstands it but it flows around the plates and into the joints and the ventilation slits. Their pose falters and their grip becomes less certain. Just for an instant, but that's all the time Harm needs to knock the centre angel's shield aside and slam into their body. He doesn't slow, using their body as a shield as he flies deep into the oncoming wave. He breathes fire again, the focused gout of flame enveloping his victim's head as he hits into another angel.

The surprised secondary victim was focusing their attention on the ground and is knocked spinning, plummeting towards the ground for a second before ectoplasma fire from the second line immolates them. Harm appears to be laughing as he changes direction, dropping down on an angel lunging at a knot of Neron's soldiers who were advancing toward the downed ship. A harsh and judgemental song forces the demons to brace themselves, but singing it keeps the angel's attention sufficiently focused that it doesn't react to Harm throwing his passenger until its late comrade is already impaled on its upraised sword.

Rosacarnis smiles. "He's a natural."

That said, I see what Neron meant about the damned. While his own people are managing with shields and… Are those crossbows? Mammon's people just can't cover enough of the sky or bring fire to bear fast enough to stop the angels reaching them. And then they can drop to the ground and wade in with their glowing swords, incoming fire reduced to next to nothing and their victims'-.

And then I hear a shriek of confusion and fear from a cluster of angels in one of the forward trenches and… Is that a cyborg zomb-? No. No, it's one of the Scabbies, enhanced with demonic cybernetics and with kaahuite blades replacing its hands. And.. teeth. The former angel darts past the defences of its brethren and slices at them in an insane frenzy, angelic armour and flesh parting easily around its blades. All across the front lines I see similar scenes as the concealed Scabbies are unleashed to cover the damned's retreat.

I work the lever, target another ship as my previous target falls victim to an arc of purple energy from one of Mr Simpson's arcane support weapons, and fire again.

The advance slowed and their crowded front line making it easier for their assailants to kill them, the next wave of angels simply bypasses them and heads for the outer fortifications. Airburst shrapnel bombs begin detonating before them, doing little against their armour but tearing wings to shreds. The gates open, a herd of bestial lukhavim led by Stercorax charging to assail any who fall. A small flock drops from the sky the moment they appear, raising a shield wall and singing in unison… To no avail as the invulnerable demon leaps from his steed, knocks aside their spear points with his chest and lays into them with his fists.

Mister Cassidy glances at Rosacarnis, reluctant to take his eyes away from the scene for even a moment. "Thought you were supposed to be one of the leaders."

"Yes..?"

She sounds a little distracted, eyes darting from point of interest to point of interest.

"Do you really think these foolish narcissists would be willing to work together if I hadn't spent years forging alliances?"

Work the mechanism, shoot the ship, work the mechanism…

"So why are you here at all? You really want the crown that badly?"

"No. I'm here to mark targets. Flight leaders, their best singers… And I ensure that our people have the knowledge of where they're hiding."

Marksmen on the curtain wall open fire, strands of purple light wrapping around angels in the throng apparently at random and burning them to the bone. And I hear it as the song across their lines falters.

Another ship manages a controlled crash, its shields down but with only infantry ectoplasma weapons available to take advantage of the fact. The angels assailing the front line have more or less finished pulling back, and the majority of Scabies have fallen to sonic attacks and resolute spear-thrusts. The ships fire again, trying with all their might to create a clear landing zone before the walls.

"Any idea why Mister Excalibris himself hasn't appeared yet?"

I redirect from shooting another ship to put a round through an angel who spotted us and dived for our position. We're a way back, but with the angels having the freedom of the air 'lines' don't really have the same meaning as they would with more mundane warfare. The bullet strikes him in the cuirass and punches through into his sternum, causing him to fall from the sky and crash into the ground a short distance from us.

Mr Cassidy sighs and walks over to him as he struggles to rise. "I'm going to say this once. Give it up. I don't want to-."

The angel somehow manages to push up enough to clumsily swing at him with his sword.

Mr Cassidy grimaces, raising his trident slightly. "Ah, come on. Don't-."

"1:1 I am the.. wrath.. of the.. Almighty!"

Blue Devil brings the point of his trident down through its head, and the angel falls still. He looks at me, then at the corpse at his feet, and he shakes his head.

"No. I assume that even in his enhanced state that he has some limits. We are making our stand here for a reason."

"What are we doing about their respawning?"

"Every weapon we're using disrupts their ability to do that to some extent. And…" She looks up, nodding in the direction of the upper battlements. I follow-.

Some.. sort of arcane device is being winched into place, another Scabbie… With a hole in his chest where his heart used to be. Chains are pulled taut, and some sort of arcane device lights up-.

Gabriel screams, and black mists rise from the ground throughout the battlefield.

"What-?"

Angel songs falter and fail, angel wings shake and shed their feathers…

"That's-. Nono-."

"The Song of Creation's Antithesis." Rosacarnis smiles as I shudder inside my armour. "Harm isn't just a pretty face. A shame it took so many angels to create a delivery mechanism, but-."

The ash-clouded sky above us is rent by fifty three purple portals, new angelic ships emerging from each one! They fire as soon as they emerge, beams of light stabbing down. Even weakened by whatever that horror emerging from Gabriel's ruined lungs is, the sheer volume means that they slam down into the demons and cause great devastation. Guns and sorcerers all over the battlements of Masak Mavdil open fire at once, and strange… Things take to the air and fly towards them. I've no idea what the full size of the Silver City's armed forces is, but-.

"4:1 Still your tongue!"

A white column of fire and lightning blasts down from a portal-. And those two burning swords and dark wings can only be Karrien Excalibris himself. His bizarre theurgical attack slams into the side of the tower, evaporating rock and defenders with equal abandon until it reaches the machine holding Gabriel. Someone pulls a crank and hurriedly aims him at it, black tears running down his face as he's forced to wield his power against the express will of the god he once served.

I aim the Hellblazer at Mr Excalibris and fire.

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
08:28 GMT

A boom, and a blue line racing into the sky. Did I-? No, he's still-. The shot was on target, what just-?

Undetected air distortion prevented impact. The ring shows me where the actual path deviated from the intended path. Cannot correct without further data.

Mr Excalibris flaps his wings, evading Gabriel's unwilling attack while he gazes down onto the battlefield. Presumably searching for whatever heathen dared assail him personally. A horde of warrior angels stream past him from the portals, heading down to reinforce the stalled first wave.

Mr Cassidy braces himself. "Did you really have to draw his attention down on us?"

On the positive side, that allows Gabriel's song to nullify the ship's energy blasts. The hulls of the ones struck directly lose their lustre and begin to flake apart. Mr Excalibris's absence also allows the crews of the tower-mounted flak cannons to get their weapons working, and moments later heavy kaahuite-laced shots begin peppering the air.

"And now it's time to share the pain." / "And now it's time to share the pleasure."

Agony and Ecstasy raise their arms, barbed wire turning to… Energy barbed wire and snaking upward, taking on the same properties it had when I first met Agony during my aborted resurrection efforts. A moment later I see it touch the portals from which ships are still emerging, attempting to manoeuvre around their stalled comrades. And then the portals… Fluctuate, whatever the twins do to control the passage between realms apparently working perfectly well on the magic-. I'm assuming it's magic? Which the ships used to travel here. Only a few ships are flat out sliced through, but the energetic collapses shut down flight wheels and severely abrade hulls.

Something catches my eye to the… Um. 120o​ anticlockwise from the original portal. Ring, magnify.

Compliance.

Upgraded and upgunned versions of those shark-plane things that strafed me during my first incursion are heading in, their automatic cannons already firing at any knots of angels which attract their attention.

Ecstasy gestures and the subverted portals spin, ships and angels trying frantically to evade before they are consumed. Mr Excalibris is forced to turn his attention from me, his jaw visibly straining as he bellows orders. Angels form up into choirs, the outer members struggling to take the brunt of the incoming fire on their shields while their comrades sing. Portals judder as shredded angels tumble, then collapse as the angels are forced to destroy their own entryways with their songs.

What I think was supposed to be a pincer movement to overwhelm the demon army once it was fully committed is down to about a third of its strength. I create railguns and aim them at Mr Excalibris. Just need to work out what degree of distortion is in play and I can-.

"5:1 Know His Almighty Wrath!"

Mr Excalibris raises his swords over his head and swings them down, fire roaring through the air in their wake! A slice of curtain wall is reduced to slag and-.

And I grab Rosacarnis and fly as a five metre wide sheet of flame scours through where we were standing. Okay, those guys on the walls need to re-aim Gabrie-.

"5:2 Burn in the Fires of Judgement!"

Second line units try to split around the sheet of flame, their compact formations good for chasing off angels rendering them highly vulnerable to area effect attacks strong enough to burst past their shields. Another fiery blast annihilates a support battery on the tower, and angels dive for the one 'safe' approach.

The first is broken in two as Harm punches it hard enough in the stomach to make it explode. There's a rictus grin on his face as he batters his way up the stream of angels, a combination of hellfire and physical assault making them sorely regret taking the opening.

"Mister Miracle to Orange Lantern."

My railgun shots achieve next to nothing, the sheer chaos of the fight above me making it next to impossible to tell exactly what it is throwing my shots off. There's a cry of exhalation from the front line as the last of the ships supporting the Host's retreat is brought down by the claws of winged abominations. Mr Excalibris turns to face Harm and s-s-sings-.

Repairing.

Hooray for a robotic body.

"Go ahead."

The angels all around him either burn or evaporate, but Harm himself merely laughs.

"I.. think I've found the frequency Karrien is using to maintain his connection to the Source."

The fires around Mr Excalibris's swords dim down to a burn-on-touch level as Harm kicks a falling hundred metre long chunk of ship out of his way.

"And can you block it?"

"Block..? Do you understand the meaning of the term 'Source'?"

Neron leads the charge that overwhelms the last of the Host's first wave as Mammon repositions his damned, sending them running back to defend the tower. An officer I don't recognise from one of the other provinces sends a flight of winged demons up to skirmish with angels trying to land on the tower in order to buy time for the gun crews. I notice a couple trying to land engineers next to Gabriel's cradle, but the platform there is too badly damaged for them to stand, let alone actually work on it.

"Only in very approximate terms. If that's a 'no', what can you do?"

Harm draws a kaahuite sword and lunges at Mr Excalibris. The Archangel parries with his right sword, turning Harm's sword aside as he slashes with his left. Harm has already disengaged, pulling back out of his immediate rea-.

Golden fire blossoms into being all around Excalibris, momentarily obscuring Harm from view. I take a shot with the Hellblazer at an angel ship which is trying to support the attack on the tower. Constant attacks have already weakened its shields enough that my shot destroys them and goes on to strike the hull. Its motive wheel shudders and flickers as the sympathetic link begins interfering with its internal-

"5:3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

-systems. The fires clear a little to show Excalibris and Harm grappling.

"5:4 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

I reach down and take hold of the Sword of the Fallen. What are my chances? Despite the damage the Host has taken there are still a lot of angels around here. And Mr Excalibris did more damage to the ground troops than the rest of the Host put together. We have no idea what else the Host might have in reserve… But if Excalibris is reduced to mortality, we should be able to clear up the rest, fix up the tower… Make contact with the Earth and find out what the heck is going on… Can I stab angels faster than they can be created? Don't know.

"5:5 And God said, 'Let there be light'-"

Harm's coat flakes away, his sword calcifies and in his instant of hesitation Mr Excalibris headbutts him in the face and then dives.

"-and there was light."

He just destroyed the kaahuite… Somehow. It appears to have a finite range given that the Hellblazer was unaffected. I take a shot at him, space bending to move the bullet out of his path, then I toss the gun aside and draw the Sword. Four more swords -these with x-ionised blades- take up a guard position in front of me. Construct armour-.

Mr Cassidy points his trident at Mr Excalibris and fires off a gout of flame. Mr Excalibris sings, the fire being buffeted aside and Mr Cassidy collapsing, bleeding from dozens of places. Rosacarnis gestures and a hellfire portal flares into existence in front of him for an instant, only for him to raise his voice and heighten his pitch and neutralise it. As he comes in I swing my swords, not believing that they'll hit him but just trying to control his appr-.

Hu-ahuh..?

Almost gently, Karrien Excalibris pushes aside my hand. His expression is no longer angry, just cold. Contemptuous. Getting distant and dimmer.

Oh.

His swords… The fires…

Well.

Brains don't have sensory nerves, so at least it doesn't hur…



















"6:3 Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!"

Shit.

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
21:13 GMT -7

"Yes, Lynne talks about you a good deal."

I smile down at Imra, who seems a little uncertain about the situation. I've seen her.. a few times, picking Lynne up from school or dropping her off, but she's always stayed away from me. Being big and intimidating is.. mostly an advantage in my line of work, but Lynne has enough difficulty making friends without me scaring them away.

"Ah… Good things.. right..?"

"The fact that she talks about you at all is a good thing. Ah-." For a moment I look around the church hall. I actually don't know which of these people are her parents. Lynne hasn't.. mentioned them, but for a Christmas carol service I'd expect that a whole family would turn out. "Look, I don't want to…" I ignore the telepathic probe she sends my way. It's an almost instinctive thing for telepaths, and it's not as if it's particularly strong. "Lynne… Has trouble.. socialising… I'm grateful that you're-. That the two of you are getting along so well. It's a big weight off my mind."

"Oh. Ah, that's… Fine?"

Right, don't weird out the girl any more than necessary. "Has Lynne spoken to you about the Center for Paranormal Studies? I was-" I look around again. "-going to talk to your parents about it…"

"Yeah, she mentioned it. I don't really… I don't have problems keeping people out of my head or anything like that. And I don't really want to go to a school on the other side of the country."

I nod. "Fair enough. But how about volunteering there?"

"Huh?"

"They do a summer camp, for children who can't make the journey on a regular basis. But they struggle to find the staff for it, because there just aren't that many telepaths around. Since you seem to be in full command of your abilities, you would be an excellent fit."

Her eyes move away from me, a small frown appearing on her forehead. "That's.. not a bad idea. I'll give them a call."

My smile broadens. "Thank you." I start to turn away, then hesitate. "Oh, and don't worry about the travel costs: for something like this I'm happy to let you use my boom tubes."

She nods, still looking a little nervous about me being around, then turns to head away at a fast walk. Hm. Actually, given the year she's in, she might be advised to consider using her volunteering as an in for applying to go to college in Metropolis. I haven't mentioned her to Director Armstrong, but there's definitely well paid work for a telepathic Federal Agent if she heads in that direction.

I amble slowly in the direction where my adopted mother is talking quietly with a couple of people from her book group. Nudging her in the direction of greater social interaction was… Easier in some ways and harder in others. Lynne doesn't lack confidence, just… Motivation. She didn't interact with people in any depth unless I nudged her, though I'm pleased that she no longer appears to have that problem. Mortalla on the other hand… Is worryingly obedient to my wishes. Or anyone else's wishes. But putting herself out there, when all she's done is 'obey' since DeSaad finished working on her? Difficult.

Word went around after my chat with Clara, and everyone has been… Really understanding. She's still-. She's looking up to check that the rest of us aren't too far away, and she's trying to keep people she knows between her and the rest of the crowd… But it's still progress.

And I really hope that I'm not about to undermine that as well.

Miss Kimble is spending Christmas with her father, and since I firmly believe that her having exposure to normalcy is a good thing I'm giving her a couple of weeks off. The G-Goblins are having a bit of a get-together, Miss Amane decided that she wanted to hunt down Dr Robbins… I've actually got Miss Selton on console duty at the moment. Apparently she just finds Christmas at the Center depressing. Ghia'ta-.

Ghia'ta steps out of the crowd, a look of distinct disquiet on her face. "Grayven, are you sure that this is necessary?"

"Sure?" Mortalla laughs nervously at something one of her friends says. "No. But.. you understand.. why I can't take the risk?"

Her head dips. "Of all that I have learned since coming to Earth, the idea that love can become… Diseased, is the most…" She grimaces and shudders. "Horrible."

"Father never loved Mother. I'm not even really sure why he kept her around."

"Do you think he..? Hates love itself because of what happened to his first wife?"

It's an interesting question. I haven't been able to find out anything about Suli's character. I don't know who would have more information. Father Box told me how DeSaad killed her, but had no information on her service record. But… It was pretty clear that Father's character was down to Grandmother, rather than anything el-.

Wait. Could that-?

I'll have to look into it.

"No. I think that after she died he no longer had anything pulling him in another direction, away from malevolence… I don't think that he hates 'love'. He never blamed anyone but Grandmother for Suli dying. This is just… An authority thing."

She nods, and steps aside.

I sigh, and continue onwards. I raise my right hand in greeting to Mother before stopping next to a conversation on the opposite side of her group. "Chet, have you got a minute?"

Chet looks around, raising his eyebrows. This is the first time I've seen him dressed up a bit; usually he's an all denim man. He's a fifty-four year old widower who works as a professional van driver. He used to do long distance haulage, but stopped and switched to local jobs after his wife died so he could look after their now-adult children. His red-brown hair and beard are shot through with grey streaks and his skin looks lived-in, but that's more due to the strains of his life rather than any particular health issues.

"Sure, Grayven. What is it?"

I wave my right forefinger in the direction of a couple of seats set up in a less occupied part of the room. He nods, and we both head that way. He sits down, and I take a chair out of subspace before doing the same.

"It's about my mother."

"Oh?" He nods. "She seemed fine to me. Is there something wrong?"

"I'm… Aware that the two of you have been… Spending a good deal of time together. And I'm grateful. After how my father treated her, friends are a precious commodity and I have noticed that you've made a particular effort to make her feel welcome into the community."

"Ah, heck, Grayven. Your mom's a real nice woman. Being friends with her ain't exactly a hardship."

"Yes. Friends. But… These rings give me a certain insight-."

"Heh." He chuckles. "Kinda thought I was too old t'git the shovel speech, but I guess under the circumstances I can't really blame yah."

I shake my head. "Chet, you're a good guy. If I felt that you were someone I needed to give that speech to, this would be a very different conversation. I trust you not to mistreat her in any way."

He shakes his head. "Of course I wouldn't. I know she had problems with your pa-."

I hold up my right hand to stop him. "Yes. That's what I need to talk to you about. And why you can't be anything other than friends."

He watches me for a moment. "Hey, if she needs some kinda counselling-."

"No, it's-. My father isn't some.. wretched hick who likes to throw his fists around when he's in his cups. My father is the Apokoliptian New God of Tyranny. Quite aside from the fact that he's more than a physical match for me, he commands vast legions of brainwashed soldiers and a rather large fleet of space-faring warships. And though I could be wrong, I do not believe that he would tolerate his concubine entering into a romantic relationship with anyone."

He leans back slightly, frowning. "I though you got her away from alla that?"

"Yes, I did. I didn't fight him, or appeal to a higher authority. I asked respectfully, and hoped that he didn't spot me sweating. He doesn't care about her enough to intervene for the most part, but if he felt that someone was… Honing in on his turf…"

"My God." He sits there for a moment, staring a little blankly into space. "No, I-. You're right. I hadn't thought about that side of things."

"If… If she was any other woman or he were any other man, few things would make me happier than the two of you being together. But I'm sorry, it can't happen."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Judgement Day

25th December
08:45ish? GMT

"6:3 The whole earth is full of his glory!"

I try tuning out the sycophantic chanting as I look…

Okay, I'm not looking, obviously. That would require eyes. I guess..? I had sort of assumed that ghosts perceived the world around them by having the coherent magic of their forms form loose connections with the innate magics of the world around them. I… I think I'm seeing more or less normally, but that could just be my brain interpreting-.

Well… No, it can't. I no longer have an organic brain. Which does lead to the obvious question as to how I'm thinking. I mean, yes, okay, the soul is a complex system of arcane energy. There's no inherent reason why one wouldn't be able to think… If in an appropriately supportive environment. But brain damage is still a thing. Brain damaged magicians… Ugh, I'm trying to remember if I read anything about that… Atlanteans tend to fix brain damage with biomancy so they haven't ever bothered to study the effects in detail…

Oh, great. No rings means no perfect recall. And without all of the tune-ups I made to my thinking meats, I'm back to… What? Okay, Heaven… I assume. I'm surrounded by clouds as far as the 'eye' can 'see'. I guess the Mind of God doesn't want to see me immediately.

I was hoping for something a bit more creative. Fluffy cloud Heaven? That's something a low-budget televangelist might put out. Okay, try… Turning around.

…

It all looks the same. Or did I just not turn? There's no point of reference and I.. don't appear to have a physical presence. Which is irritating because I definitely remember there being a garden in the Swamp Thing version of Heaven. Even Anton Arcane got to go there. I am seriously supposed to be-? Alright, I did kill more people… But I did it for reasons of justice and order, not for fun or to assuage personal curiosity.

No, no, I'm not going to try to justify myself to these people. Let's try to do something productive. I picture myself reaching out with both hands.

Rings.

Oh, oh, that was not… I can't.. feel…

Eh. Alright, no orange light. Wherever I am I'm clearly beyond its reach. So I can't call my rings, reach the Ophidian-.

…

I can't speak. Which doesn't really make sense. Seeing is dependent on eyes, yet I can still see. Ghosts have been recorded as speaking, I'm clearly capable of forming coherent thought…

Sound? Yes, disembodied chanting. But nothing else, not even the wind which should be blowing if there really are clouds-.

Oh shit. No one can reach me here. No post-mortem communications… Assuming that the angels stop attacking Earth now that I'm here, Jade will get access to my contingencies file. So… Even optimistically, I've got a wait of months before someone can get the parts for a white power ring together. Assuming that those can override the restrictions from whoever runs this place. Because if Satanus could work out how to mess around with a Lazarus Pit, I hope that my friends have the sense not to use one in this situation.

HELLO!

Ugh, stupid idea. They wouldn't have put me here and then forgotten about me. Maybe they're hoping that the chanting will turn my brain to-. My mind to mush? Ghosts tend to fade without a focus. But… This place is so different from Earth that I can't assume that the same conditions apply here.

What am I actually going to do? My rings are in Hell… Unless Mr Excalibris destroyed them. Which… Eh, I was sort of attached to them, but a more modern replacement would actually be superior to both of them. I'm more annoyed about losing my lantern, because that was Alan's. The armour's aoh… Shit. Unless Mr Cassidy or Mr Free are really quick on their feet, I just lost the Hellblazer, the Ace of Winchesters and the Sword of the Fallen. Quite possibly to Mr Excalibris. I mean… It doesn't… Really matter if the Host get them. Does it? The Ace back-hacks theurgy to destroy demons and they don't need that work-around. The Hellblazer… That will enable them to discover that other focuses work and how they work, but it only really disrupts theurgy and the angels are pretty much the only ones who use theurgy.

How did Mr Excalibris counter Harm?

It sounded like he was chanting from Genesis. The very first bit. Where God forms the Earth from the formless void.

Ah.

So the Great Void isn't so much inherently anti-Creation as it is pre-Creation. And Mr Excalibris can wire it into the rest. If Harm survived that, I'm sure that he'll be disappointed. But he didn't convert the whole of it, just what was immediately around him. A time thing? A power consumption thing? A power flow thing? Don't know.

And someone who isn't me is stuck carting around the Sword of the Fallen. Again, I'm not sure that the Host would benefit from it. If they want to kill a demon they've got theurgy. The only problem might come if they decide to shank other pantheons… But it doesn't add much that they can't do with theurgy. And Zauriel said that they didn't really care about that sort of thing back while he was still playing for the Silver City. The absolute worst thing there would be if someone worked out how to reconstitute the Second and Third of the Fallen. Or… Would it? In Hellblazer, it was strongly implied that they were dispatched to keep the First too occupied, but with them gone he just went back to doing what he was doing when they were still there. And it's not as if they'd be better at cooperation with just two of them than when there were three of them.

…

I hope Mr Cassidy is alright. I mean, him and everyone else, it's just that he's the one I saw go down while being a demon in close proximity to an angel. Not that I can do anything about it, but I suspect that the only reason he was in Labyrinth rather than anywhere else in Hell was to help me.

And out of nowhere I'm reminded of the scene in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey where they're falling into Hell. They scream for a while, then realise that nothing is going to happen and stop. And then, for want of anything better to do, start again.

Am I still enlightened? My desires… Yep, still all lined up, even if I don't really have any idea how to apply them in my new state. Nice to know that how I was thinking wasn't a product purely of the orange light.

I mentally and entirely metaphorically exhale.

I'm literally stuck here until some angel or other remembers I exist and flies over here, aren't I?

Excuse me, God. It's me, P-.

Clouds… Part. Behind them, some way away, there's a… Light? And just in front of that… Ah, more Bill and Ted. A humanoid shape on the seat, the whole thing so sharply illuminated that I can't make out any details. And we have movement. Without any sense of scale I can't tell how fast I'm going or how big what I'm moving towards is, but at least it's something.

Huh. Alright, this is about to get serious and I literally don't have a brain any longer. I may not get another chance to test this. Can I say my name here? Heh, I'm actually a little nervous about it. It's been a year and a half, after all.

"Penitent soul."

The voice comes from everywhere. Though I can't tell whether that's because I have no ears and am hearing it through some sort of mystical earphones, or because it literally is coming from everywhere. I'm getting closer to the hackneyed throne and… The impression I'm getting is that the figure sitting on it is about five metres tall. Inasmuch as that means anything.

Am I thinking at the Mind of God? Can you hear me?

"You have been brought here-"

Against my will, yes. I should be in Erebos right now.

"-because your particular sins have caused great problems for Creation as a whole."

Can you hear me? I don't seem to be able to ignore you, but you're not going to get much out of this if we can't have a dialogue. And not a 'you're so clever, Socrates' dialogue. I want to know what the heck is going on. And how the heck has anything I've done been problematic for the structure of Creation?

"By removing a fruit from the Garden of Eden, you have risked unbinding the link between the Dream and Earth. And worse, between the Source and the Earth."

…

Huh.

"I will explain matters to you so that you can properly repent before being sent to judgement."

 

[Mr Zoat]

A bit later
Assuming that time works here

That's… Interesting. And plausible-sounding enough that I can't dismiss it out of hand. It sounds… No one has successfully investigated the relationship between the Dream and the material universe in any sort of structured way; that was why I went to Venturia. So let's say that the Garden of Eden is humanity's collective dream, both of the Garden as relayed by the holy books of the Abrahamic tradition and of oases. The Source is.. behind the Source Wall, but it's also accessible. Many have tried, but hundreds of civilisations have records of the Great Darkness succeeding. Which makes me bloody glad that Yuga Khan wasn't around to watch it and get any ideas.

But how credible is the idea that Earth is special? I think I've rather gotten over the 'this is a comic written by people on Earth Prime' thing… In fact, I'm not sure I wasn't over it for long enough for it to really have been a thing. On the other hand, if even a fraction of the accounts of miracles -theurgical magic- are true, then compared to verifiable instances on other planets… Yes, actually. Not only does Earth have many more, but it also doesn't result in the miracle casters immediately transcending the material universe. There aren't enough aliens here for me to know whether that's a species thing or a location thing… Maybe when I get back to Earth I can talk to one of the more reasonable Source-worshipping groups about setting up a research project?

Of course, since the Roman Catholic Church didn't really have any way to tell theurgy from other kinds of magic until relatively recently, and since canonisation has long been more a matter of politics and economics than a sign of actual divine approval… It could all be bullshit. Or at least mostly. I suppose that the people to ask would be demons: did it burn when the man touched you?

So, okay. A garden like that might well result in the Earth being far more thaumically active than would otherwise be the case. Assuming that that isn't due to the presence of the life entity as I had been assuming. And I can't test it, because I'm stuck in Heaven and can't take the landlord at his word.

That's frustrating.

But I still don't see how moving a fruit would-.

"The Garden of Eden is the nexus of a set of highly specialised spells I set in place to ensure its permanence. While moving a fruit would not by itself be enough to disrupt that network, you exposed the Garden to kaahuite, and you exposed the fruit to both demon and damaged theurgical magic. The sympathetic linkage involved in doing that has created instabilities which required me to act counter to my long-established policy of limited direct interference in order to prevent the damage spreading."

Hm. Disconcertingly plausible. Though… Combining demonic and theurgical magic shouldn't do much more than make the demonic elements burn away in golden fire-. The Fruit bridged the gap. It's… Literally able to bridge the gaps between conflicting energies. Which would mean that all of those connections could exist together quite happily. And if there was no barrier between arcane energy systems… Yes, that… Could create problems.

Except that it was a single fruit. If the unintended side effects weren't immediately apparent then at least one of the researchers we had there would have detected something.

"While the magics inherent in the fruit itself would not have caused a runaway contagion, the linkage between the area outside of the Garden and the area within it would have caused the gradual breakdown of the separation. The Earth would have become a nightmarish realm where dream and reality overlaid one another, and the effect would not have stopped there."

There's a sinking feeling in the pit of my… In the bit of my mind that used to be connected to my stomach. I don't know whether or not he's telling the truth, but it's all-. I didn't check the arcane networks around the Garden. Long term sympathetic connection… Would Sephtian have thought to check for something like that? Would he have been able to? I mean, I'm not sure that it justifies an angelic invasion of Earth or killing me, but there could be a real problem there.

"Added to the problem created by the fruit is the problem of you. You are not from this universe. The rules by which you innately function are different enough that your very presence has been creating minor breakdowns in Earth's thaumatic networks. Though they are slight at present and being written off as minor and temporary fluctuations, they will redouble in power and continue to spread if left unattended. That is why I commanded the Host to act: only through extraordinary measures can we reverse the damage and restore the world to how it should be."

Which means Mr Cassidy, Angelica, Zauriel and myself should have been.. it. So why the attack on KordTech? And, Sephtian has samples of the fruit. And records-. They'll want to destroy everything, won't they? They won't do anything sensible like let us study the phenomenon so that we can guard against it. Would they go to Venturia as well? I would guess not. I only visited once, and that had nothing to do with the fruit. Since they don't celebrate Christmas they might have started reviewing previous research already, but I doubt it.

I wonder how 'extraordinary' these measures are going to be? They might just be going around and burning points of interest with holy fire, but if they've got access to Earth's source code then any number of things could happen.

"Do you understand, now, why I have acted as I have?"

Yes, because I've suddenly regained the ability to speak. But I suppose that there's no harm in giving it a try.

""I understand the explanation which you've given me and acknowledge its plausibility, but I'm not completely convinced that you're telling the truth.""

What? Okay, try again: killing me was entirely unnecessary when… No, I've been turned off again. Hm. Him asking me implies that he's not omniscient. Or that he's asking for my benefit.

"I am the Mind of God. I am a manifested expression of the thoughts of God Almighty. I speak the truth because I am part of that which defines truth. I speak the truth for I have no reason to lie."

""And the answer to the obvious question about omniscience is?""

"I am not the whole of the Almighty. To be in his presence as you are would scour you from the universe. It is through entities such as myself that the Lord God acts, for the safety of Creation. It is for the safety of Creation that the Source Wall exists. Were such power to be directly applied to the Earth it would be unmade. The Almighty might then recreate it, but it would be created anew and not restored. This option is available if the present cleansing cannot be completed, but it is not favoured due to the redeemable souls which would be lost in the process."

So… Not omnipotent? I assume that his god wouldn't want to destroy souls just by being around them… Or maybe there's something else going on? 'Yes, I could make a universe where that could work, but I put this one together without that functionality'? Some greater goal served by making that a possibility, and the work-around is granting a servitor race access to theurgy? I suppose that this Mind of God thing doesn't need to know everything, just what is needed for it to complete its appointed task.

But that still leaves me. Dead. Floating here. While I accept that I was foolhardy not to make thaumatic readings from around the Garden… That's about as far as I'm willing to go at this stage. I would want independent confirmation of the truth of what he's saying before I'd go any further.

"Do you now understand what you have wrought? The harm which you have caused in your arrogance?"

I feel my… Mouth? Able to work again, but this time I'm going to think about it carefully. Whether he's a genuine representative of 'God' or not, I appear to be completely in his power. And… Trying to put my pride aside for a moment, he could be telling the truth.

""Why was it necessary to kill me?""

"The physical reality of your presence would have been just as disruptive to paradise as it was to Earth. Your soul however is for the most part made of the stuff of Creation. I can withstand it and contain it."

Hm. Again, plausible. And it's not as if I would have simply walked up to Mr Excalibris and let him kill me. And if I'm really an epic-tier thaumohazard that would explain why no one else is around…

""I am still dubious, but if you can answer a simple question I am prepared to provisionally accept what you say as true.""

"Ask it then, that I may bring you closer to God."

""What's my name?""

 

[Mr Zoat]

A bit later still
Probably

Because honestly, if God can't say it I may as well start calling myself 'Pavlos Nguyen' now so I can get used to it.

"Explain yourself."

""I am uncertain that you are truly who you claim to be. That you represent who you claim to represent. You have told me that I exist in a purely spiritual state, because my soul is for the most part made of local materials. I know my name, even though concentrating on it tends to have an adverse effect on me. No one else does. You appear to have been responding to the things I have been thinking. In my mortal life I was able to respond in that way by looking at the souls of others. I could not conceal anything from you even if I wanted to. Telepaths who have attempted to look upon my name have been rendered unconscious by it.""

""You claim to be a part of an omnipotent, omniscient being. You were sent here to deal with me. If that's true, you must know my name. Say it.""

"You would put your god to the test!"

""My goddess is Eris. Properly speaking, if I am to be tried, Lord Hades should be the one doing it, with a representative of the Host presenting charges if you felt it necessary. But putting that aside… Surely my name is a small thing? Given all the problems that occurred in the Bible with false idols -and that one prophet who got confused messages about whether he was supposed to eat bread or not- can you really blame me for wanting to be certain?""

"Your name is Paul. Do not test my patience and generosity in this way again!"

And the res… T. Ah, I see. A poor loser. Mother of Mercy took it far better. Which means you're not the Source, probably don't represent it and are generally acting contrary to my interests. Since you're clearly prepared to lie to me about that, I can't trust any evidence you attempt to provide on any other issue. And.. suddenly I'm feeling less bad about not conducting scans of the Garden.

I wonder what you actually are, under that glow? I'm… Struggling to think of anything that could fool angels like this. I remember comics where various beings assaulted the Silver City, nothing about... Maybe this is what I get for not reading Sandman all of the way through? Hang on, Zauriel's stay in Justice League started with him acting in opposition to one of the Four Kings, didn't it? Which one was it?

Oh, right. Obviously, the one who spoke in support of me, because if you want to take control of the Silver City for yourself but only control a quarter of its military you need to get the extra muscle from somewhere. But if in this timeline they aren't at loggerheads and the thing claiming to represent the Source clearly doesn't, they might well end up on the same side. Ass.. uming that he isn't the thing I'm talking to right now. I got the impression that angels aren't particularly mentally flexible. If he learned flexibility from somewhere, he might find outthinking them painfully easy.

"Knowing what you know now, are you prepared to repent, that you may be absolved of your sins and pass peacefully into my kingdom?"

Since there's no point in trying to engage with a creature like this, the most sensible thing I can do is try to restore my connection to the orange light. That and the obvious.

""My name is Paul-.""

I'm.. not sure what happened there. The all-encompassing cloud is gone, replaced with an empty sky the colour of an orange sunset. In front of me there are clouds, arrayed around a now-visible series of cracked stone steps leading up to a golden throne.

And the now-visible figure upon it, whose right hand is pressed into the blank space where his nose would be if he had a nose.

"This is exactly why I prefer to deal with people like you indirectly." He moves his hand away and looks up, a smile fixed on his lips-. His mouth. It's not actually moving. It actually looks like it's… Printed on. And his eyes aren't any better. "But I'm afraid that you seeing my face doesn't change anything. You have sinned against your God and against your fellow man-"

Boss Smiler.

"-and you've heard of me." He sits back, hands reaching up to adjust his jacket. "Or close enough. I'm Boss Smiley. And you haven't ever held political office. So I'm curious where you heard my name."

""Oh, I can talk now, can I?""

"Something I've learned from watching the best and worst of human leaders over the years. It really works better if you know when the jig is up. There's no sense doubling down on a failed strategy." He nonchalantly crosses his legs. "Though I wasn't wrong when I said that it didn't matter. I can keep you too isolated to tell anyone who I am. With the angels' help, I can leave you here for eternity if I have to. And with my soldiers on Earth… All kinds of things could happen."

""I freely admit that you hold all of the cards.""

"Good. You'd be amazed how many people hold entirely unrealistic expectations at this point." He shakes his.. disc-head, steepling his fingers on his lap. "So let's talk about you."

""Was any of what you told me true?""

He shrugs. "What is truth?"

""That which accurately describes events and situations as they occurred.""

"But does my truth have to be the same as your truth?"

""We can each hold differing non-hypocritical beliefs concerning a situation, certainly. But I'm afraid that 'political preferences' are not things that can be 'truths' or 'falsehoods'.""

"But my perspective being different than yours doesn't make me evil."

""I don't believe in evil.""

He moves his forearms out to either side, palms raised. "I don't, either. But I have a particular viewpoint on human affairs that a good many idealistic people find objectionable. It makes my work difficult, and it's a good part of why I usually don't communicate directly with people."

""I can't really comment until I know what that viewpoint is.""

"And I suppose there's no point in asking you to have faith, is there?"

""You can always ask.""

"That's part of my problem with you. Even now, I can't get the same feedback from you that I can from most people."

""What are you? You're clearly not an angel.""

"Actually, I am." He holds out his right hand, golden fire flickering on his palm. He then closes his palm, snuffing the fire out. "Or something like one. But what I want to talk to you about is a… Let's call it, a change in official policy."

""Which policy would that be?""

"I like superheroes. And supervillains. Three colour fun, wham, pow, sock." He raises his fists into mock guard for a moment before dropping them. "I've always been one for encouraging a prevailing narrative of truth and justice. Just so long as nothing fundamental changes."

""Oh.""

"Danner wouldn't get with the program. Sidelining his work wasn't all that hard, not with the Second World War making the whole eugenics movement too toxic to touch. But there's more and more like him every year and you even dug him up. It's getting to the point where I'm not going to have a choice but to stop suppressing super-tech and let it enter the mainstream, and if I'm going to do that I'm going to need a new narrative first."

!!!

""That's..? You?""

 

[Mr Zoat]

The time is a secondary
concern right now

"Yes, of course it was. You're a bright lad, try to keep up. Now, for the new narrative, I was thinking-."

""Whow whow whow whow whow. Let's just go back to the bit where you were suppressing human technological innovation. How long for?""

"Why does it matter? What does it materially change about the situation?"

""Basically nothing, but that's not the point. I may know your name, but I don't actually know what you are, what you want or what you can do. I want to know what I was trying to work around.""

His shoulders sag slightly in a pantomime of a sigh, though I don't hear him exhale.

"I'm Boss Smiley."

""The boss of what?""

"How about we start with you?"

""You have power over me, that was never in dispute.""

"Then again, I don't see how telling you achieves anything." He waves his right hand to the side. "If I told you that I was the boss of a small construction firm in Central City, what would it change? You'd still be down there and I'd still be up here. What if I told you I was the Prince of the World? A spirit created by the prophet Abraham to keep tabs on the Silver City? A trickster god from a South American tribe the Aztecs killed, who infiltrated the heaven of the White Men to avenge his people? A proto-Slavic moon god who jumped ship as Christianity spread but never quite fit in? A diseased angel, a fallen saint… Any one of a hundred things? For all you can tell I might really be the Mind of God. What does it matter?"

""It would make me feel slightly better.""

He leans forward slightly. "Oh, you want something more meaningful? Fine. I don't exist."

""What?""

"You don't think you'd have heard of me if I existed?"

""There are probably hundreds of gods I haven't heard of.""

"Gods." That pseudo-plastic face is getting a bit grating. I would be fine if it was just a mask, but there's enough animation in it that it goes straight into the uncanny valley. "Those are useful things. Why does lightning happen? Gods. Why does the weather get hotter and colder? Gods. Why do people get sick, why do crops fail, why is there war, why is there peace..? It's the gods, no further analysis necessary." He fake-sighs again. "Simpler times. Easier times."

""Except for the people getting struck by lightning, frozen to death, killed by curable diseases, starving due to poor agricultural techniques, killed in warfare...""

He makes another dismissive gesture. "But civilisation marches on. Controlled and predictable. Safe."

""I.. don't understand.""

"How hard would it be for someone to wipe out the human race tomorrow?"

""Someone from Earth, or an alien?""

"From Earth."

""A.. few.. types of engineered diseases could probably do it. Nuclear weapons wouldn't, but it would be pretty hard going for the survivors. Certain.. exotic weapons could do it. The Sivanas certainly could, if they actually wanted to. Magic… It would be hard to do with magic, but I suppose that a sufficiently large sacrifice could alter the world in a way that wasn't survivable by humans.""

"And how many of those were available a thousand years ago?"

Is that where he's coming from?

""None. We didn't have the technology to create diseases intentionally, we didn't have fission weapons and it would have been difficult to get enough people in one place for the sort of sacrifice you would need. Are you saying that you believe that improved technology will inevitably result in humanity's destruction?""

"No. Not at all. Technology is developed and spreads because it serves a need, after all. There's no sense in keeping people living in caves if a natural part of the carbon cycle will result in a climatic shift that they can't survive without technology I prevented them from developing. No sense in preventing the spread of medicine when natural mutation can create a disease just as deadly as any laboratory. I'm just a natural conservative. I'm more comfortable when societal change is gradual, and when the levers of total destruction are in the hands of as small a number of people as possible."

""How… Conservative?""

"Did you have a chance to have a good look around the Earth when you were alive?"

""Yes.""

"That conservative. Magic was a problem early on, but a few whispers in the right place and hardly anyone uses it. Fission weapons looked like they might be a problem, but after a few polite conversations everyone was too paranoid to risk them. Superpowers, meet balance of power. But then there's you."

""What, you couldn't find me?""

"I couldn't speak to you. And I think you might have powered through anyway. You're invested in novel technology as an end in itself. But if it wasn't you then it would have eventually been someone else. As I said, I'm reaching the limits of what I can do within the current narrative."

""So...""

"I can send you back to Earth. You'd be.. alive, and I'm sure that a resourceful young man like yourself could get his equipment back before too long. And you'll work for me."

""In what way?""

"'Orange Lantern's technological revolution'. How about that? You can establish research centres…" He moves his right hand so that it's resting against his chin, and his left hand moves to support his right elbow. "Off Earth, under the sea… I suppose that it doesn't really matter exactly where they are. As long as they're out of the way. You can develop whatever you like, recruit whoever you like, do whatever you like. And I'll arrange for someone to set up a review board so they can carefully consider which bits of what you develop can be safely released into wider society."

""I'm not sure that's actually helpful.""

"The bit where you stop being dead is the helpful bit. The bit where I tell the angels that you've repented and that your friends aren't the enemies of Almighty God any longer is the helpful bit. I've got you over a barrel, and I know-" He clicks his right thumb and forefinger together, conjuring an image of my blue alter ego. "-that you can be a rational man when you don't have any say in the matter."

""Why are you so worried about this?""

"Do you know what happens to a civilisation when everyone gets super strength?"

""Mars manages.""

He tilts his disc a little to the left. "Mars. Where their whole species had to be reengineered by the Guardians. And where they've been physically unchanged ever since."

""Yes?""

"There are few things that humans can't adapt to, given time. But a change like that would flip the board. The economy, society… Huge amounts of the wonderfully intricate complexity of human civilisation would become irrelevant. Do you know how many wars that could cause? And then you've got every country arming up so that their armies can cope with people who can laugh off anti-tank rounds. A few people that strong? Great, everyone needs heroes. Everyone? No, chaos and misery and a reasonable chance of an extinction event. I won't allow that. So either you become my man on the inside, or I keep on with the extreme measures."

He stands, towering over me.

"Why don't I leave you to think about it for a little while?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

I've got some
thinking to do

I can…

Eh.

I can move around very slowly. For want of anything better to do I head up toward Boss Smiley's now-abandoned throne and… Hover my point of view where my head would be.

Where I think my head would be. Since I've got no way to tell what the scale of any of this is… No, it's probably not relevant.

So, on the face of it, his offer is… Not good, but certainly liveable. I would still be able to do my technological work… Benefits would be slower in reaching the rest of the population, but progress would still be made. And I doubt that Atlantis's arcanotechnological revolution would just stop. My work with the Orange Lantern Corps would still carry on, and I could superhero as much as I wanted.

I'd be a near-useless Reed Richards.

Except… Near-useless Reed Richards isn't useless-useless. He still saves… Things, sometimes New York, sometimes the Earth, sometimes other worlds… Sometimes his own marriage. Point being, comic stasis might prevent him doing anything revolutionary but he still does a lot of good.

And I've just met the being responsible-. Well, I've met the being who claims to be responsible, and he has no obvious reason to lie about it. The one responsible for Reed Richards and every other poor super genius scientist being 'useless'. The reason why everyone in America didn't have super strength by 1930. The reason why cold guns exist but most people still use freezers with compressors. Probably the reason why AIs only just became people. And this is someone I might have to work with? For?

It would suck, but so does being dead and looking at an eternity of solitary confinement.

""Can I still..? Talk.""

Yes, I can. Somehow.

What.. even is he? I remember him from Sandman, where he was doing something while Prez was President. He probably arranged the death of his wife and… Wanted Prez to work for him in some capacity? I think I remember that the version in the original Prez comic was just a criminal businessman, but I never read that comic.

Are there ways to fake out theurgy? I never put any effort into studying it, so… I'd say 'probably', but I really don't know. This might actually all be a test on the angels' part, to see if I'm willing to sell out my principles. Which is part of the problem: of course I'm willing to sell out my principles. If I can't get everything I want, getting part of what I want may be acceptable. But angels don't seem like the type to respect that. Or understand it. I mean, that sort of thing was why Job was given a pass, even after refusing to deny his faith to save the lives of everyone around him. These people probably think he made the right choice.

Ugh, I'm getting bored already.

See, I sort of get Jews approving of Job, but why the hell do Christians approve of him? People died because of his stubbornness. Literally, a few words is all it would have taken. 'God sucks'. And Satan… Lucifer? Whoever it actually was, assuming that anything remotely like that ever actually happened, would have had a quick laugh at God's expense and gone back to whatever they were doing. But no. Keeping faith with God is more important than any amount of suffering. But if preventing suffering is good and getting into Heaven is good-

I take a moment to look around.

-and that's something I'm pretty sceptical about at the moment, then surely him giving up the opportunity to go to Heaven in order to help people is an act of profoundly selfless generosity? In fact, I can't think of much that would prove that he was more worthy of reward than doing that while fully expecting to be hideously punished for it.

So why aren't I trying to call Boss Smiley back right now?

Because I can't believe a word he said.

He wants me to work for him. But somehow I don't think that he had me killed so that I can sign a contract of employment in his office. Or… At the foot of his throne. I'm fairly confident that there's going to be an ongoing coercive element here, something bound to my soul that I'm going to need to agree to.

Which makes no sense. Why does a being who can control the entire Host without them being any the wiser need my consent to do anything? He certainly didn't need it to send me here in the first place.

What is he?

Aside-. Heh. If he's really the reason why schizo tech hasn't ever spread, then he's far more my nemesis than anyone else on the planet. Mr Truggs or.. maybe Lex could be dark mirrors, but this guy literally stands for everything I hate. The suppression of progress and unimpeachable authority.

Far more my nemesis.

Far more my-. Come on! Why can't I feel angry? Why can't I hate him?

And not just because it irritates me. If I'm sufficiently 'me' to even think about things in this way then I should still have my full range of emotions. Why..? Might I not?

No connection to the red light of rage. Hm. My personal lantern may have gone out but my ring still worked. And I didn't hear any mass pani-. Any mass reaction to everyone's emotions suddenly going dead.

Maybe this is just what being dead is like? Lord Hades -who bloody well better be protesting this- makes an effort to connect everyone in his realm to Erebos now, but back before he had his epiphany the shades used to be a fairly vacant lot. Maybe after a few centuries with no emotions that's just what happens?

But-. No. My soul is mostly made of orange light. If I'm complex enough to think complex thoughts I must have the ability to feel avarice.

""This is my cause, this is my fight,
Shine through the void with orange light,
I've claimed all within my sight,
To keep what is mine, that is my right.""

Oh, that's… I still know what I want, but the raw impetus is… Less. Which should be impossible. Most likely explanation? My thought processes are continuing to be altered in some way. I'm resistant to that sort of thing, not immune to it. So I'm not feeling what I'm actually feeling.

Hah.

But how to break that? Denied any access to information gathering and so unable to do the sort of patient investigation which I prefer…

""My name is Pau-.""

Ugh. Um… No, no, nothing's changed. I've drifted a little further down the steps, but aside from that everything is as it was. I'm going to guess that whatever is interfering with my mind to prevent me speaking my name only works on other intelligences. I've got no real reason to make a firm conclusion in that direction, but it fits the available data so it will do for now.

All that's left is brute force and mindfulness.

My cause is the betterment of humanity and of the wider universe. It is the creation of polities which enable individuals to realise their non-malevolent desires, and to enable that realisation myself. It is the sharing of knowledge and experience to build. It is to show people a better way to do things, to help people be better.

And it's a fight because the universe is full of fucking idiots. And more than a few malevolent individuals and societies who can't be talked around or down and need to be done away with.

'Shining through the void' I picked more because it sounded good than because of any deep philosophical attachment, but the way superheroes on Earth try to be role models I suppose that it applies in my case more than I originally thought. I'm trying to inspire my fellow Orange Lanterns to be mindful and stable, rather than barely restrained weapons.

Claiming all within my sight? Yep. My desires don't magically terminate at the end of a national boundary, or a certain distance into space. I might limit myself for practical reasons, but ultimately I'm assuming the infamous Maltusian 'unlimited jurisdiction'. Arrogant? Yes. Is my fricking ring orange?

What is mine? What am I keeping? Everything is mine, and I'm keeping the bits I've put effort into because I'm not about to let someone else mess it up.

Like Boss Smiley.

The world around me shatters. Three gold rings encrusted with runes rotate around me, three angels staring up at me in shock.

And the runes on the inner ring are turning orange.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Finally getting
somewhere

I smile as the closest angel looks at me, then at the spinning rings and the glowing runes. I narrow my eyes as I see one that consists of a smiley face.

"1.1 Please remain calm."

He looks… Thin, shallow. There's no orange in there at all. Or.. much of anything else, aside from a thin gold wire frame I don't want to try touching. But I feel it. I feel my own desires surging, eating through the thaumoconductive… Whatever the heck-. Whatever the Hell this stuff is. Try and stick me in a fake Heaven, will you?

"1.2 We will restore your paradise as quickly as-."

There's a flare of orange light as the entire runic network covering the interior of the rings turns orange, and as I drain power from the system all three collapse to the ground. A moment later I collapse to the-.

And… Apparently I have a snake tail now. And-.

I run my surprisingly dexterous tongue around the inside of my mouth, blink with both sets of eyelids… Yep, my spirit animal is a snake. No hands… Movement appears to be fairly instinctual.

"-possible."

"Who are you?"

Speaking without using my mouth. That's interesting. I suppose that a snake doesn't have the right throat structures for English. And I don't remember the Ophidian ever having to move her mouth to speak.

"1.3 My name is Hamaliel." Behind him, one angel stands rooted to the spot while the other is backing away. "I constructed your virtualisation vessel."

'Virtualisation vessel'. Not a troubling name at all…

"Where am I?"

"1.4 The Silver City." He takes several steps closer before kneeling down to look at the largest of the rings. "And I'm sorry to say that there will be a slight… Delay in restoring your subjective experience."

"I seem to remember dying."

"1.5 Yes, death is usually what happens when you die. I'm afraid that your mortal life is over. But do not worry; by the Grace of God even such oddities as yourself are no longer denied union with the Almighty."

I slither off the.. pedestal the rings and I had been floating over, the other two angels edging nervously around the room in order to maintain their distance from me.

"Do you know who I am?"

"1.6 An intelligent serpent of some kind? I understand that humans have gained an understanding of advanced biological sciences."

He doesn't look up as I move around him. No obvious alarm from him, the other two are more nervous than anything else…

Do they..? Not know..?

"1.7 It seems like such a short time ago they were coming to understand basic horticulture, and now…"

He hums, then frowns as the runic array melts in response. He simply shakes his head.

"1.8 I'm afraid that I'm going to need to go back to the drawing board with this one."

"Do you have any specific instructions regarding me? Is there something I am supposed to be doing?"

"1.9 We were instructed to put you here, rather than with the others. But not beyond that." He turns his head and looks up at me. "I am sorry, but exposure to my more complex songs may prove disruptive to whatever purpose put you here."

"But you don't know what that purpose is?"

"1.9 By the hierarchy, such things are ordained. I have no need to know 'why'."

Hooray for mindless subservience. They might not know who I am, but I don't want to risk cluing them in by asking helpful questions.

"Do you need me to wait here, or is it alright if I go for a bit of a wander?"

"1.10 You are free to wander. No harm may befall you in the Silver City. You will be informed when it is time for you to return. Until then, marvel at the work of Almighty God."

"And… I'm sorry, I don't remember anyone explaining why I was in there?"

"1.11 As I said, neither of us need to know that. This arrangement-" Another hum, and the broken and molten remains of the rings float back into the air. "-is part of a project I'm working on. We're trying to make Hell obsolete."

"Could you..? Define obsolete?"

"1.12 Unfortunately, neither the absence of God on High nor the application of conventional 'pain' are particularly good mechanisms for encouraging repentance. We have thousands of years worth of data to prove that. So we're trying something different. My hope is that if we can demonstrate the glory of God in a way the… Ah, 'otherwise damned' can understand, it will be far more likely that they will come to understand their own vices and truly repent."

I nod. Between that and Satanus nee Mammon's work, eternal torment sounds like it's becoming a thing of the past. Only took them… How long? No, that's not important.

"I'll get out of your way. Good luck with the -" Soul prison machine. "-virtualisation vessel."

"1.13 Glory to God."

In excelsis. I.. slither towards the room's arched doorway. The room and the opening are strangely tall, and the walls are completely smooth. And silver, naturally. It's kind of dull, but I'll take that over getting incinerated again. Can I die twice? Let's avoid finding out.

Outside my containment room is a long corridor, the wall in front of me punctured by ridiculously tall windows showing a view of the exterior. More silver buildings and windows, and I can see more angels doing… Whatever it is angels find to occupy their time. None of them are wearing armour, and I can't see anything in the way of technology. And at the edge of the city… Looks like floating meadows. In other circumstances I might quite like spending time here.

Imma get the fuck out now.

I start slithering down the corridor to the right. Okay, try stuff out. I'm a disembodied soul made mostly of orange light. I don't have a power ring. Can I fly? No. Darn. I'm going to bet that what with the Silver City having been built for angels it almost certainly doesn't have disabled access. Constructs? No, no power ring. Hm. Self-modification?

Draconic wings extend from my back, and the rest of me shrinks to maintain my total volume. Trying to replace it with a jetpack… I get a jetpack outline with no functionality. How did Alan manage like this?

More importantly, was that whole thing with Boss Smiley real? Or just their attempt to show me something to warm me up to the idea of worshipping their god? I mean, Mr Excalibris was getting orders from somewhere. There is something calling itself the Mind of God around here. I've just got to avoid meeting it. Or anyone who can recognise me as a-.

Through the window I see a couple of gold-armoured angels fly over the outskirts of the city. I'm glowing orange and I'm in front of a window move!

 

[Mr Zoat]

Moving
now

Maximum squiggle speed corner too fast roll-ing!

Okay, out of sight of the window. Don't know how much use that actually is, but if the angels I've spoken to so far are any guide they're not a species blessed with great intellectual curiosity. Ugh, my head is too close to the floor. I sort of remember being in serpent form when the Ophidian and I were merged, but we could float. That was far less objectionable than this.

"1.1 Hello? Are you lost?"

Wings spread, an angel lion descends from the upper portion of the room. That's… Odd, though he doesn't seem any more alarmed by my presence than Hamaliel was.

"It would be true to say that I don't know where I am. However, since I don't know where I'm going it doesn't really present much of a problem."

The lion alights a short distance from me and sniffs at me.

"1.2 How did you gain entry to the Silver City?"

Okay, I'm not having this conversation from the floor. Let's try…

I pull the lower part of my body into an approximate circle and begin coiling up onto myself. Feels a bit odd, but at least my head is off the ground without me having to constantly exert myself.

"I died. I've been in Hamaliel's machine since, as far as I can tell."

"1.3 Ah, you're part of a new trial group!" He walks over to a lectern and picks up a book and a quill. "How did you find it?"

"A little confusing. I was a Hellenist in life. I wasn't expecting to come here."

"1.4 I didn't know that we had started trials on non-monotheistic faiths. A.. jarring transition?"

He turns to an empty page and raises his pen. Ah, a feedback form.

"So… From what Hamaliel said, the aim of that was to put me in the ideal frame of mind to repent?"

"1.5 It is not simply a matter of the frame of mind. You must come to understand your vices, and accept that they are vices."

"And… Anyone I encountered. Were they… Real?"

"1.6 I'm afraid that I can't answer that without prejudicing the study. Does that worry you?"

"Existing at the whims of beings I don't understand? Yes."

"1.7 I was referring to the individuals you may have encountered. Though knowing that you are ill at ease with us is worth knowing. It has been quite some time since we had to adjust for polytheists."

What's the plan here? Answer his questions, subtly try and get more information on what's going on.

"I got a bit of an inconsistent message. The individual I spoke to claimed to be one thing, I demonstrated that they weren't that thing and then they became someone else. They started out pushing the paternalistic authority angle fairly hard, and then switched over to a… Sort of a might makes right manipulative approach..? I ended up disliking both, and I'm pretty sure that I'd have responded to a more.. logic and evidence focused approach better."

"1.8 I see." He taps the feathered end of his quill against the book's binding as he thinks. "And what form did these figures take?"

"The Mind of God... At least, it was supposed to be. I've never met the real thing. And someone called Boss Smiley."

"1.9 Curious. Few people on Earth know the precise manner in which God Almighty communicates His intentions to us. Have you studied the Silver City?"

"No. But… Have you heard of Boss Smiley?"

He raises his right hand and a book floats down from a wall-mounted bookshelf. Once it reaches his level it opens itself about two-thirds of the way through.

"1.10 'Heard of', yes. I assume that you're talking about a humanoid figure in a suit with a yellow disc for a head?"

"Yes."

"1.11 Our information suggests that he's some sort of minor demon who preys on the fears and prejudices of political figures. Persuasive, beguiling, and intelligent but with limited physical power. I'm not sure why a virtualisation vessel would show you someone like that. Were you involved in politics a great deal in your mortal life?"

"Not a great deal."

"1.12 I'll mention it to Hamaliel. But the most important question is whether or not they aided you in gaining perspective on your vices."

"The Mind of God representation brought up a few things concerning the possible unintended consequences of my actions which I'd overlooked at the time. I'd say that I'd want to check whether its observations were accurate or not, but.."

"1.13 Yes, quite."

"And I don't think… Whether what it said was right or not was rather beside the point. It could have been right, and I didn't take the time to check when I did it. That was something I… I had control of. I wasn't particularly pressed for time, I just… Decided to go as fast as possible."

"1.14 Pride on your part, do you think?"

Pride? Um. An irrational sense of my own value. I don't.. think so. If I held myself in that high a regard I don't think that I'd have bothered empowering Angelica in the first place. I'd just have offered to sponsor my team myself so that I didn't have to bother kowtowing to Batman.

"No… I know that I have limits. I think it was more… Impetuousness. Most people don't even think about doing the things I do, so I didn't have a model to measure myself against. I wanted the results and I… Just went for it. It wasn't that I thought that I was good enough to wing it if there was a problem, I literally didn't consider the potential for fallout. At least, not the fallout that might have fallen on other people. I mean, there's a limit to how much contingency planning it's practical to do, but… In the example he brought up, I really scrimped."

Yeah, I'm… I think I actually understand where Sephtian was coming from with his complaint about being overworked. At the sort of power.. we can bring to bear… When I get back to Earth, I'm going to.. cut back a little. Take some more time. And actually, getting back on the team should be a pretty good way to keep myself busy without risking flipping the board.

"1.15 That sounds like progress to me. I thought that you said that you found the method in which the argument was delivered to be unhelpful?"

"Yes, but I like to think that I'm not so prideful that I need the most powerful being in the universe to turn up in person to tell me I've done something wrong. If the argument is a rational one, then it shouldn't matter who delivers it."

"1.16 I see. And.. you.. said that you were a Hellenist?" I nod. "What sort of level of involvement are we talking about?"

"I.. met several. Traded favours with my particular patron..."

"1.17 I ask because we're had some traffic here in surprised neo-pagans who didn't... Do you understand how the destination of a soul is normally determined?"

"You associate your soul with the mythos in life."

"1.18 Not quite. Just being around minor divines is seldom enough. A devotee must participate in sacrifices, rituals, celebrations and ceremonies. They must genuinely devote themselves to their preferred patron. Would you say that your relationship with your patron was reverential, or were you simply trading favours?"

Huh.

"I.. might have been, I suppose. They didn't.. say anything."

"1.19 Were you an atheist before converting to Hellenism?

"Ah..? Yes..?"

The lion angel nods. "1.20 It's a not-uncommon problem. The thing about worshipping a god is that you have to worship them. Treating them as an equal just doesn't have the same effect, I'm afraid."

Oh.

"1.21 Now, what did the Boss Smiley representation want with you?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

My first confessional
Apparently

"He wanted me to work for him. He claimed to have a policy of suppressing certain forms of social development, but that since it was getting to the point where his preferred system wasn't viable any longer he needed to change it. So he wanted me to take the most disruptive elements somewhere else where he wouldn't have to worry about them so much."

"2.1 To lead a great migration, such as Moses led from Kahndaq? Do you see yourself in that role?"

"Did that actually happen?"

"2.2 Not all of the details of the event made it into the most popular accounts, but if you're familiar with the biblical version that was more or less accurate."

A timely reminder that however polite he's being to me, angels are all about obedience to authority. However monstro-.

Boss Smiley couldn't talk Prez into working for him, because Prez had a clear mission and didn't believe that Boss Smiley had anything to offer him. Boss Smiley claimed that Prez had done work for him unintentionally afterwards, but that basic agreement was very important to him.

Willing obedience to authority.

I wish I remembered that graphic novel better. It sounds like Boss Smiley is a perfect fit for Heaven. Angels are good at obeying and bad at questioning. Humans sometimes do inconvenient things like 'the right thing' at the most inopportune times. Angels don't.

Is that his..? Thing..?

"Then… No. I'm rather against gen-ah..."

Except I'm not, am I? I mean, is it still genocide if you didn't exterminate them because of their membership of a particular group? Yes, yes it is.

"Against separating people out like that. My whole objective is to peacefully encourage certain types of societal reform. Just kicking out potential reformers is stifling to the society doing the kicking. Plus I've.. never really been interested in governing."

"2.3 Then what do you think that element was about?"

"My best guess is that either Boss Smiley has somehow infiltrated the system and was making me a genuine offer, or it was an attempt to see whether I would abandon my morals in the face of a threat. A sort of low-stakes version of the torments Job endured, my test of faith."

"2.4 And how did you feel about it?"

"The problem I have with the setup was its dishonesty. The figure I was talking to had already demonstrated a propensity for lying. So even if I was inclined to compromise, I couldn't trust him to keep up his end of the deal. It would have been as if Job renounced-" Wince. "-God but the torments kept on coming."

"2.5 Or if Abraham was permitted to sacrifice a goat in place of his son? Are you familiar with that tale?"

"Yes. I remember an interpretation of that story I read in the novel Hyperion. That version implied that it wasn't a test of Abraham's faith; rather, it was a test to see whether or not God was a deity worth worshipping. If he allowed it to go ahead, he wouldn't be. But the offer had to be genuine or it wouldn't prove anything. God passed the test by sending the goat."

"2.6 I.. don't believe.. that I've heard that interpretation before. But… Going back to your psychodrama, you feel that the setup was undermined by the figure's prior dishonesty?"

"Critically. If it was testing for my capacity to be morally compromised, but puts me in a position where I can't trust the figure making the offer, then the only reason I would accept is if I was stupid. I might be perfectly willing to compromise, but refuse to because I don't think I'll get anything out of it."

"2.7 And if it wasn't about compromise?"

"If it was really Boss Smiley? To be frank, that would be extremely worrying."

"2.8 No, I meant if the system was trying to deliver some other message."

"If it was 'don't put faith in false idols', then they picked some really unwise imagery to use. 'Being takes the role of God, turns out to be a lying shit' probably isn't the best way to convert someone to monotheism."

"2.9 But he wasn't God."

"He occupied the same role, relative to the observer. You might feel an absolute faith in-" Wince. "-God, and the ability to know with absolute certainty whether or not a particular instruction comes from God, but the rest of us don't. If it looks like God and talks like God and has power over you like God, then for everyday purposes it might as well be God."

"2.10 Really?"

"Do you..? Spend a lot of time on Earth?"

"2.11 Not for a while, no."

"It might help you design better systems if you were more familiar with human society and mindset. If you're taking in people who aren't monotheists, you need to remember that they're not going to respond to God in the way that you're used to."

"2.12 That's a fair point." He scribbles down a few notes. "So if it was a polemic against putting faith in false idols, it fell short. What other meanings do you think that it might have had?"

"That's the thing: I genuinely don't know. I suppose that it might even have been trying to persuade me that compromise was right. How many.. other people are in one of these things?"

"2.13 I'm not certain. Thousands at least."

"Have any of them reported these sorts of problem?"

"2.14 No, no, everyone else has remained inside their vessels. That's why I'm so interested in talking to you: you're the only one I've had access to."

"Is there some difference between me and the other candidates? Because if there is, that might be where the trouble is coming from."

"2.15 You are the first openly pagan individual, but given the wide range of forms of belief practised by earthly monotheists that shouldn't be a good predictor of the quality of their experience."

"No, that could be it. Ultimately, they all regard God as the absolute judge of morality, even if they don't always live up to their own standards. I don't. That indicates a completely different instinctual response to deific imagery."

"2.16 I suppose that it's possible. Why.. were you taken out?"

"The structure of my soul is somewhat unusual. The system couldn't handle it. Hamaliel's having to do a bit of a redesign."

This isn't improving my situation fast enough. If I wanted to talk about my shortcomings I could talk to Diana. Or Father Mattias if for some reason I wanted a monotheistic viewpoint. What else could I try? I could just slither out, but I don't have anywhere in particular to go and I'm sure that someone will stop me eventually.

"2.17 Your soul is unusual?"

Do I..?

Yes. I have fangs.

I loosen my coils slightly.

"Weren't you surprised that I was orange?"

"2.18 Snakes aren't my speciality." He takes a few steps closer and peers at me. "What colour should you be?"

I lunge, biting down into his shoulder before he can do more than gasp.

Mine.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Nothing to
see here

I withdraw my fangs, my coils still wrapped around him. Looking at him, I can see the orange percolate through his psyche. But those are my desires rather than his.

"State your name."

"Rrall."

"And who does Rrall work for?"

"Rrall works for the Host, but wants what you want."

I shift my position, moving the forward part of my body away and then bending my neck around to look into his eyes. Good orange glow, without a sigil that would make what I've done super obvious. That, combined with what I see inside him…

I uncoil, moving back to the floor. "Given what I just did, why haven't you fallen yet?"

"Falling is only automated in the case of grotesque violations of the Celestial Order, though it can also happen as a result of a ruling by the Courts. So far I have merely spoken to you and been poisoned."

There's something different about his voice. Not just the orangeness, something of the absoluteness has gone as well. Not quite as much of a change as it was when Zauriel spoke, but it is noticeable. Or at least it is to me.

I reach out through the orange light bond my poison provides. "Is there anything I need to know?"

"This part of the Silver City is not regularly patrolled, but angels more militant than I can reach here very quickly if they notice anything amiss."

And those guys who attacked my fortress were warriors. A single-snake insurgency doesn't sound like a workable idea.

"How did the attack on Hell go?"

"I was not aware that there was one."

"Who rules the Silver City?"

"The Four Kings rule the Silver City in the name of God on High."

"Can you take me to where the other virtualisation vessels are?"

"I can. However, it will swiftly be noticed if we do anything to them."

Probably wouldn't be a lot of use anyway. I mean, I'm curious, but unless the souls there have some facility for theurgy-.

"Do the souls there have a facility for theurgy?"

"I don't know. I think it unlikely, as that would run contrary to the stated objective of the project. If they are already close enough to God to be capable of using His magic, they would not need special redemptive treatment."

"Where is Karrien Excalibris?"

"I don't know. I certainly haven't seen him recently. I'm afraid that he doesn't support our redemptive work. He prefers to brutalise sinners into obedience."

Yes, I know.

"Where is the Mind of God?"

"Everywhere and nowhere. It manifests only briefly to provide instruction to us, and generally does not linger long."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. If I were to guess, I would say that it was due to the risk of damaging either us or the fabric of the universe."

"Did the Mind of God empower Karrien Excalibris, or is he just that powerful normally?"

"I don't know. I'm a scrivener and researcher, not a warrior."

Ugh, the big one. "Can I appeal a decision directly to your god?"

"Certainly."

Oh good. "How?"

"God is omniscient. Speak, and He will hear."

This jaw isn't really designed for clenching. "If I wanted to do it in a slightly more direct way..?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps..? Speak to a human theurgist? They usually come to Heaven only briefly before moving on, but if you were to speak to one they may be able to assist you in a way we angels can not."

"Explain."

"Angels such as myself are granted those forms of theurgy necessary to our positions, and are unable to manifest miracles outside of those bounds. Human theurgists are generally able to manifest a far wider range of miracles."

"Who in the Silver City is capable of restoring me to life?"

"The Four Kings could collectively authorise such a thing, but that is not our purpose. If someone has lived their life, what comes next is judgement and placement."

Ugh, doesn't matter. I can make a body for myself once I get my rings back, and Ambrose or John can bind my soul to it. Oh! Yes.

"Where do the new arrivals appear?"

"The front gates, naturally."

Ted… I think he was a non-practising Christian. Most of the other people at KordTech New York would be as well. I'd like to get him resurrected, but at the very least I should say something to him. Thank him for what he said. Get in touch with Mammon if Ted didn't… Come here. And his.. staff as well. Ah heck, Richard's parents, aunt and cousin are probably around here too, aren't they?

No, worry about that later. But what do I do? As I see it, the other virtualisation vessels are my only real lead on what's going on. Alternatively, I could try getting in touch with one of the Kings… Or biting one. No, they'll probably have far better theurgical protections than Rrall here.

Openly and honestly talk to someone about my problem, or sneak around and make a mischief of myself?

Okay, but this time they're clearly being controlled by someone who wants to do me a mischief. This isn't like not talking to the League, this is like not talking to the Light.

Definitely.

"Rrall, take me to the other virtualisation vessels. Using whatever mode of conveyance will attract least notice."

"Certainly."

He raises his hands and there's a flash of golden light-. And we're not in his office any longer. We're in a small silver-walled antechamber to a vast chamber I can see through the doorway. Inside, an angel is examining a virtualisation vessel. He looks around then turns back to his task, apparently unconcerned.

Rrall leads the way into.. the…

The room is big. Looking upwards I can't see the ceiling, the stacks of virtualisation vessels just sort of blur together at the edge of my visual range. Ahead of us I think I can see the far wall, but I can't swear to it. Having no horizon is visually confusing.

Inside each vessel is the translucent outline of a human, apparently in a state of repose. I can't see any faces I recognise, and without a ring I can't just compare them to my database files.

"What did you wish to see?"

"Take me… To the oldest."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Lots of things to
see here

This is so undignified.

I was right, and the Silver City doesn't have disabled access. And by 'no disabled access' I mean 'you really need to be able to fly'. As a result, I'm now hanging off Rrall as his wing-flapping shoots us upward at space-distorting speed. Not a lot of orange coming from the inmates. These are supposed to be people in the process of repenting, aren't they? Surely they'd have a bit more avarice in them than this? Or maybe these are all the older ones and they've already mostly finished, with just a few 'deviant' thought processes between them and true unification with the Source.

I'm really going to need to talk to Mr Free about speaking to Mr Izaya about that.

Rrall ceases his flapping and we glide to a halt in front of a virtualisation vessel containing… A black woman. No idea who she is. No visible sign of distress… Not that I'm sure that there should be any even if she was in distress.

"Rrall, do you know who she is?"

"No, but I can find out if you like."

I look over the runes on the inner and outer surfaces of the three rings. I don't recognise a lot of them, but from the general structure… They're connecting the system to something external. I don't know what or where, but-. Wait a second-.

"Rrall, do you understand these runes?"

"I'm afraid not. It's not my area."

I catch sight of the Smiley rune.

"Okay, but that one there-." Darn, no hands. I point with my tongue and he gamely tries to see what it is that I'm indicating. "You see it?"

"The one which looks like a crude depiction of a smiling face?"

"Yes. I noticed it because-. Because it looks like Boss Smiley's face. And I.. could be wrong, but I think that runic setup is used for arcane power transfers."

"His face is a rune?"

"No, but these setups allow someone with sufficient arcane power to use a form of personal identification rather than a pre-existing rune. Ahri'ahn used a symbol made up of overlapping triangles on most of his really noteworthy artefacts."

Hm. Alright. If he wanted to talk to anyone held within a particular 'paradise' then he'd need to mesh his rune in there somewhere, but why is it in the power flow system?

"This is the oldest. How old?"

"She was born in the eighth century BC."

Around about the time the Jews embraced monotheism. So… What, they've been putting people in these things the whole time? But…

I look around again.

How many monotheists have died in human history? Actually…

"Are there any aliens here?"

"No. We only deal with the dead of Earth."

"What do monotheists on other planets do? Where do they go?"

"I assume that the Creator has made other arrangements for them."

Okay, but… This can't be all of the monotheists who have ever died. Can it? Can't hurt to ask.

"Does everyone get put in one of these?"

"No."

"Who does? What's the selection process?"

"I don't know. But I know that some people definitely go somewhere else. There are angels whose role is to ensure that happens."

"So we could ask them what the criteria are?"

"At the risk of being discovered, yes. And we might have to ask every single one of them if they only know who they are supposed to escort."

"Do you know any… Characteristic which definitely results in an escort or which definitely doesn't?"

He smiles. "Naturally, theurgists don't need an escort."

I suppose that if they're in communion with their deity anyway then anything else would be a bit point.. less...

I look at the virtualisation vessel to the left. It takes a few moments, but I'm.. not seeing a Smiley symbol. In fact, the outer ring looks like it's more focused on excluding influences than tying them in.

"Have these devices been modified since they were first made?"

"Not to my knowledge. We've only been using them for a few centuries."

I-. I can't frown. "You said eighth century."

"I said that she was born in the eighth century. She died in the seventeenth century. Such lifespans are unusual, but hardly unique."

"So is she the oldest person here, or has she been here the longest?"

"Oldest person here. Sorry."

I look right. Again, no Smiley. So I'm going to guess that the Smiley symbol only goes on the ones he wants to interact with in some way. If I could actually feel magic I could probably sort through this far faster.

"Can I assume that you can't look for the vessels with Smiley icons without triggering an alert?"

"I could inform the intendants that I was doing so to aid Hamaliel's work. Of course, I would then have to tell Hamaliel."

"Because you're very honest, or because they'd know if you were lying?"

"I-. I suppose that I'm very honest. Also because they'd know, and that would trigger an alert."

"I really shouldn't be surprised that you're a nicer person than me, but earlier today an angel sliced me into pieces and set the pieces on fire. It formed a fairly negative impression."

"That was extremely unlikely to aid in your rehabilitation."

I look around, searching for more Smiley faces. I can't immediately see any, but they're small and there are a lot of vessels around here. Alright, let's eliminate a known possibility. I stare at the occupant in the vessel directly in front of us, and… Yep, gold strands.

Boss Smiley isn't the Source. And if anything he said was true then I doubt that he'd be able to use theurgy himself. But. If he has the souls of a large number of miracle workers tied into a system he can control…

Is that possible? Wouldn't there be some sort of checksum for things like that?

"Take me to…" I turn my head to look at Rrall. "You can't remotely locate theurgists, can you?"

"I can, but why would I need to?"

"I've got a nasty suspicion that-."

There's a small explosion of.. colour, above us and to the right, and a ripple in the air as-.

As Rrall and I are yanked upward, bound in glowing energy chains!

 

[Mr Zoat]

What
now?

I could try biting through the bindings, but since they don't actually hurt and I imagine that falling from this distance would I elect not to. Besides, if I'm being bound by an angel I don't want to give away the threat that my bite poses. Some sort of.. ripple passes through the surrounding area, and then Mr Miracle carefully descends through the portal I can barely make out on his aero discs.

"One angel and one.. snake." He looks at me carefully. "If you're the Ophidian, that's one heck of a diet plan."

"Mister Free, the Ophidian was the strongest arcane influence on my life when I was alive. We were literally merged when my arcane tattoos were trying to build me a soul from scratch. Why is my soul looking like this a surprise?"

I can't tell what expression he's got behind that face mask, but his head isn't moving. And he appears to be shielded against empathic vision.

"Paul?"

"I can't roll my eyes anymore, but imagine I'm rolling my eyes. Did you bring my rings?"

"Why are you in Heaven?"

And as much as I'd like to say 'fuck you, that's why', I now know why.

"Apparently I wasn't sufficiently reverential to the Olympians. I was treating it like a trade rather than a religion. Do you have my rings?"

"No, I gave them to Donna and she was taking them to Erebos. Where you're… Not."

"So it.. hasn't been long then? I don't really have any way to measure time…"

He shakes his head. "A few hours."

"Okay, resurrecting me can wait. We've got a bigger problem."

He nods. "Even after all of the angels you and the demons killed, just Karrien alone is powerful enough to be a major threat."

"No. Worse. I think I've found out why they came after me. Take a-." I go to point with my right arm, and fail due to not having one. Instead, I'm forced to settle for pointing my tail in the approximate direction of the virtualisation vessel I was just looking at. "Have a look at that. I think that Heaven has been suborned."

He floats down past us and waves his multi-cube at the device. "I was trying to trace where Karrien's power was coming from. According to Angelica he's never been capable of feats like the ones he was pulling off in Labyrinth before. If it really is the Source, Highfather might-."

"Ping!"

"I see what you mea-

"Ping!"

"-n. Energy's definitely being redirected from somewhere."

"Might it not simply be powering the system?"

Scott glances at Rrall. "Did you.. do something to him?"

"My bites brand people now. My desires are his desires."

"Okay… I.. think we need an expert on theurgical magic to take a look at this, because this is very different than New God technology."

"Are Zauriel or Angelica available?"

"Zauriel? He came back? And didn't try killing you?"

"Yes, Zauriel was cast out. He came to Themyscira to warn me, then came with me to my fortress but I lost track of him in the fighting. Angelica's had access to theurgy for a few months, but if we've lost Zauriel-."

"The League are tracking him now. Wonder Woman said 'hi'."

"I'm glad to hear that she's-."

"And she wants me to tell you that the Orange Lantern Corps is attacking the outside of the flaming cage."

I didn't know Dox cared. Maybe he just doesn't want me to be late returning.

"To be honest, in one-to-one combat and with Karrien excluded, I think Orange Lanterns win. Are they making any progress?"

"Hard to say. I think the barrier's been getting slightly weaker, but it's still blocking all direct communication." He glances along the lines of virtualisation vessels. "What are these things?"

"Hell two point oh. They put redeemable souls in them and feed them illusions until they reform. Except this one-" I clumsily point again. "-was capable of theurgical magic in life. And I suspect that there are others like her."

"They think the Source wants them to use its magic to do things, but only because they're being lied to. No angel would need to use someone else's magic. You got any idea who's behind this?"

"My guess is a… Thing called Boss Smiley."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know."

"What is he?"

"I don't know. I mean, we had a conversation. Probably. But I'm pretty sure that he was lying and I don't have any other sources of information."

"What does he look like?"

"A man in a suit with a smiley for a head."

He sighs. "I liked being an escapologist. The first time in my life I didn't have to deal with insane or evil gods the whole time."

"Earth really wasn't a good place to go if you wanted that to remain the case. Look, the theory I'm working on-."

"'Boss Smiley' wants you gone, connected to the Source using human miracle workers and used them to power up Karrien, but how did he take over Heaven?"

"I'm… Guessing that he used large amounts of theurgical magic to pretend to be higher up the Source-related divinity hierarchy than the Angel Kings… But I've got no idea how he acquired the magic to do that."

"So we need to disconnect him. Because even if that doesn't make the angels realise they've been obeying the bad guy, then at the very least it turns Karrien into a manageable problem."

"I hope so. Can you track any other theurgically active souls in here?"

"As long as they're powering Karrien, sure."

"Then… We need to work out how to suspend the power flow. And bear in mind that letting loose a lot of angry saints probably isn't very safe unless we can explain really fast."

"And we've got a way to-" He looks down. "-get them down. How about we head back to Earth while Doctor Mist takes a look at these runes?"

"Can I..? Do that?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
23:43 GMT -5

I stare dejectedly at the rim of the circle chalked on the ground around me, then poke the end of my tail over the line.

It stays coherent for a couple of seconds, then begins to evaporate.

I pull the remains back. Darn it. The angels wrecked the zeta tube system, which means that we don't have any way to bring my rings back here faster. And given that they've still got squads going from place to place having 'words' with people who feel mystically active, no one likes Donna's chances of being able to fly them back.

"So…" Artemis looks me over again. "Are you gunna take her name?"

"Probably." I flick my tail a couple of times until it begins reconstituting itself. "I mean, I can't say mine. But I'm not keen on the spelling."

"Huh?"

"Nuh-guy-en. If we can change it to double ewe eye en or double ewe why en en ee I'd be fine with it, but as it stands the lack of any grapheme phoneme correspondence just bugs me too much."

"I… Meant the Ophidian. Because you're a snake." She blinks. "Are you and… Jade getting married?"

"Oh, ah… Yes, but not anytime soon. We're going to wait until the war with the Reach has gotten to a.. stable point. I don't think that the Ophidian has a surname." I coil up into a stack again. "Do you know what sort of snake I am?"

She slowly shakes her head. "It's hard to tell without knowing what colors your scales are. And what size you're.. supposed to be."

I slump, but it's probably not very noticeable.

"What's.. Heaven like?"

"I only saw the Silver City. It's a city without most of the things that make a city a city. It's silver in colour and so is uninteresting to the eye, designed for giants who could fly and filled with people who barely qualify as sophonts. And it's not where I was supposed to go."

"Ah..? You didn't see anyone you know, or-?"

"Like who? I'm not from this universe originally. My grandparents didn't go there." I-. I can't shrug. "The only person I actually know who's died is Michael Siskin, and… I don't know exactly what Nabu did to him, but I doubt that he'd be in a position to greet me. Even if he wanted to." I tilt my head ninety degrees to the right. "I didn't see anywhere anyone would spend eternity, just a place where angels hang out when they're not chopping people to bits and setting fire to them."

"Uoh. Did you..? Feel..? That?"

"No, I got to experience an entirely pain free death as my blood ran out through multiple sword wounds and my brain was incinerated. Zero out of ten, would not recommend." I take a look around the cave's training room. "Is this really a sensible place for us to be?"

She shrugs. "Doctor Mist says they only found this place because everyone knows about it. The wards are all still working, so they can't detect exactly what's happening."

Makes sense. That was pretty much what I was thinking when I designed them. Seriously, this is the second place anyone would look for the Justice League, right after the Hall of Justice. Probably before the Themysciran Embassy. 'Not knowing exactly what's happening inside' is the best we were going to get.

I look ar-. I slip off my own coils and try to style it out as I move the front part of my body to the other side of the circle in response to the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor. Zatanna comes first, Staff of Love in hand. I wave my tail at her as she slows from a fast walk to a near stop.

"Hello, Zatanna. Dead and decidedly not loving it."

She raises her staff, runes of various shapes appearing around a central Star Sapphire sigil.

Kon, M'gann and Richard follow her in, Kon walking up to the near side of the chalk circle while M'gann and Richard hang back a little.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm unlikely to get worse in the short term. But that's.. worse than dead."

"Plenty of demigods only became gods after they died."

"I can slither. And I have to bite people to brand them. Turns out that turning into a giant snake in itself doesn't help."

"Not all the gods get great portfolios…"

I shake my head-. Which is far more awkward than it used to be. "What's happening outside?"

Richard brings up a file on his arm computer. "Did you know that the British government has contacts in Hell?"

"Um… Short answer, I'm not surprised, given how thaumically active London is. Why?"

"They knew about what happened in the Labyrinth before the League told them. Or… Sort of what happened."

M'gann frowns. "What did happen?"

"Mister Miracle took me there at my request because it seemed like the best place to fight off a horde of angels. We were doing okay… Until Mister Excalibris started throwing massive columns of fire around."

"The footage they had made it look like it was… Humans, fighting against the angels."

"After our meeting, Mammon agreed to continue Satanus's project of liberating the damned. A.. significant chunk of the defensive force was comprised of his volunteers."

"'Damned', Oh El?"

"It's easier to get damned than you'd think. Basically, be a monotheist and don't make the grade, or be from a monotheistic society and not have any particular faith. Atheists and agnostics get damned, and they certainly don't deserve Hell as it was."

He glances aside. "That's pretty much what the British government is saying. Russia, China and Britain are pushing for the UN to treat this like an alien invasion."

"Good for-."

"Including allying with Hell."

"Huh. … Who's the lucky demon lord?"

He glares at me. "They're talking about trying to help demons destroy Heaven. You said the angels were getting mind controlled! You can't hold them responsible for what they've been made to do!"

"Not if they've been mind controlled, no. But if they haven't and they're just dumbly obeying bad orders then yes. I. Can. Hell's reform program is about creating a civilised society in the worst place that can exist through voluntary participation. The nearest the Silver City has to that is sticking people in a simulator until they're appropriately brainwashed."

"They-."

"They tried it on me."

"Do you really want the Justice League to help demon armies to invade Heaven?"

Yes.

"Not particularly. So why don't you focus on working out how to undo the mental influence setup Boss Smiley is using so we can stop them before it becomes necessary."

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
23:48 GMT -5

Zatanna finally lowers her staff, blinking as she does so. Her eyes-. Glowing violet, though under the circumstances I can't really criticise.

"I think we can put you back in a human body."

"Delighted to hear it. Some variation on the bindings I was using to make my soul in the first place?"

"Exactly. But now that I understand what Missus Sackville did, I think I can do it better. Also, what do I have to do to start worshipping Aphrodite?"

"I'm not sure. The Amazon tradition involves stating a desire and a single act of devotion, but I think that's a cultural thing rather than a requirement of the goddess herself. I haven't met her." Ugh. "And… Much as I hate to say it, you should probably hold off on making that sort of decision until we've sorted out exact-."

"They killed you! I don't care what their reason was!"

The star sapphire is glowing in a way I find a little concerning… But then I'm literally made of orange light at the moment.

"I appreciate that, but we don't really know the extent to which the angels are acting on their own recognisance. Gods and elementals can be made to act contrary to their normal behaviour, make errors of judgement or.. just do bad things. Aphrodite certainly isn't blameless-."

"And she doesn't claim to be." Zatanna takes a breath, twitching slightly as she notices the intensity of the star sapphire's glow. "Ecuder rewop."

The jewel obediently dims, and her eyes return to their natural colour.

"Better?"

Her eyes drop to the floor, and she gives her head a small shake.

"No." She sags slightly. "Do you remember when you told me that John Constantine cut Gabriel's wings off with a chainsaw? And that he was a mass murdering rapist."

"Yes. Not perfectly any more, but yes."

Her mouth twitches in irritation as she looks up. "It wasn't like I didn't know that the-. Gods Wonder Woman worships existed. But when dad found out that I had the same magic powers that he did, he made sure I got an in-depth lesson on exactly what things like them were. What they did. I never.. thought about… Angels, and.. God in the same way." She breathes in and out. "And then I couldn't stop thinking about it and I actually read the whole Old Testament like it-. Wasn't God and was someone else."

"He's killed nearly as many people as I have."

"'Firstborn son of every Kahndaqi household'."

"I made a poster about it in Secondary School. Which is pretty messed up by itself."

"Who did he rape?"

"According to a source I haven't been able to confirm, Mary."

She flinches, then shakes her head again. "I shouldn't be surprised."

"Though I'll say again, Gabriel was the one who did that and the one who did most of the Old Testament murdering. We don't know what sort of orders he was getting, we don't know what he was thinking and the reason Chantinelle was able to seduce him was that he was having doubts about the righteousness of his cause. If the other angels I've spoken to are anything to go by he was doing that despite his brain literally being designed to prevent him doing so. The highest authority any angel I've spoken to has claimed that they're in regular contact with is their own four kings."

"So you don't think God told them to do it?"

"I'm not sure that the Source ever tells anyone to do anything."

She thinks for a moment, and appears to shrug it off. "Does Aphrodite?"

"If she did, Hippolyta would be m-." Diana walks into the training area, a familiar and heavily warded case held in her right hand. My eyes would widen if they could. "Oh shit, are we actually using that?"

She reaches over the chalk line and puts the case down in front of me. "If you can open it."

Since I didn't want anyone using it, the case is designed to be about as resilient as it was possible for me to make it. Kal-El might have been able to destroy it, but short of him…

"Mister Free couldn't open it?"

"Mister Miracle is explaining to the United Nations Security Council why allying with Hell is a bad idea. As you know, we didn't explain to the Security Council what it does."

Right. No. Because that would have been asking for trouble. There's no record on League computers, either.

I lay my tail on the orange-light friendly locking mechanism and… Yes, I can feel it.

Open. Yes, really.

Force fields disengage, runic defences are moved apart and rendered inactive by mechanical ratchets, explosives disarm… A bit depressing that this was what I plundered the database I took from Lantern Stewart's ring for, but it was all in a good cause.

I lift my tail off the case and squirm back a little and the lid comes free.

"Probably best I don't touch it, particularly now."

"I agree."

The Spear of Destiny -or whatever its actual name is- sits in its case, looking entirely innocent.

"Dare I ask..?"

"The sorcerers in the Atlantean Embassy have confirmed your conclusion. The runes are most likely being used to give Boss Smiley theurgical abilities. Our plan is to send Mister Miracle back to Heaven with the Spear, and use it to free as many theurgists as possible at once."

It works on the dead. Marvellous. Wonder if it works on me?

"And then?"

"Hopefully, that will be the end of the matter. Otherwise, the Justice League will seek out Boss Smiley and reveal his lies to the entire Host."

"You'd have to find him-. Assuming that he's actually physically there at all. And I get the impression that angels aren't very good at adapting to rapidly changing circumstances."

"I agree. The solution to that is to have someone with an existing connection to him present when we begin our search, along with a theurgist whom we know will work with us."

Hm. Not as if I have a better idea.

…

Or… Maybe…

"If they haven't missed me yet, I could go back to Hamaliel. Try and lure Boss Smiley into communion with me. Otherwise, I'm happy to hang around with Angelica. Not like I can die twice."

She picks up the case, careful not to risk either touching or tipping out the spear within.

"I will pass that on."

"Do I get to try biting a few more angels? With that silenced boom tube I could probably sneak up on them."

Diana looks at me disappointedly. "Since we have good evidence that the angels are being misled, I believe that our interests are best served by attempting to reveal Boss Smiley's deception peacefully."

I nod.

"Slither softly and carry big fangs."

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th December
23:57 GMT -5

"Brother, might I have your attention for a moment?"

I watch through the 'hush tube' as the angel Rrall addressed turns away from the virtualisation vessel he was checking and steps towards him.

"1.1 How may I aid you, brother?"

"I have been tasked with assisting Hamaliel in improving the design of the virtualisation vessels. However, upon examining those presently in use I.. noticed several undocumented modifications that I could not explain."

The other angel doesn't seem concerned. "1.2 What did Hamaliel say about it?"

"I only decided that I needed to raise the issue today, and he is occupied with rebuilding a damaged prototype. I thought that perhaps you could enlighten me?"

The other angel raises his right hand, golden lights flickering around his fingertips for a moment. Checking that his orders are valid. Fortunately, they are. "1.3 In the name of the Most High, I will aid you to the best of my abilities. What is the nature of this modification?"

"It is a change to the composition of the outer runic ring on a small proportion of the vessels. I am uncertain as to what it does, but it certainly is not part of the original design."

"1.4 There should not have been any such alterations. Take me to one, that I may examine it and determine its function."

"This way."

Mr Free glances at the control system for the device. "Mother Box."

"Ping."

There's a faint hum as the capacitors work to provide the epic amounts of power the system requires, then the tube closes and reopens next to the saint we examined earlier.

"1.5 …impossible. If you are unwell, then it would behove you to seek a physician."

I tense. Rrall didn't think that what I did to him would be immediately obvious, but if we're rumbled then an awful lot of uncomfortable things are going to have to happen fast.

"I thank you for your concern. I feel fine, but if it will allay your concerns, I will consult a physician once our work here is complete."

"1.6 If you are certain."

Rrall glides aside as the other angel takes a closer look.

"1.7 Nothing seems obviously out of place. What exactly is the cause of your concern?"

"You see the rune here?" Rrall points at what I presume to be the Smiley rune. "In fact, this whole array. It is.. very different in design to the reflection system that the normal version has."

The other angel takes a closer look.

"1.8 You are correct. That should not be there." He raises his right hand and once more golden lights flicker around his fingers. "And yet, all is as it should be. Perhaps it is simply not for us to know?"

"Perhaps, but the directives I have received compel me to investigate. Unless you have received orders not to, I must continue."

"1.9 Of course you must. Perhaps we could refer this upwards?

"A sound suggestion, were it not for the fact that these are unauthorised."

"1.10 But it is authorised. You saw me perform the test with your own eyes."

Rrall shakes his head.

"I am the assigned notary. I have records of every test; I must. I have no record of this, and hence it cannot be authorised."

The other angel frowns.

"1.11 That is disturbing. Perhaps… The issue is one of two departments not communicating properly? It is unusual, but it has occurred before."

"I acknowledge the possibility, brother. But we only have permission to contain souls within authorised vessels. This is not authorised."

"1.12 You believe that she should be released?"

"Released and contained elsewhere until such time as the truth of the situation has been ascertained. You have tested me and you have tested the device. One of us is reporting in error."

"1.13 But if it is you, then we do not have authorisation to remove her contrary to established precedence."

"We can make a reasonable determination based on the situation, so long as we refer it immediately to the kings. This would require their personal adjudication, as they are the only ones who could have created this situation. In cases where such things have been discovered in the past, those who moved to a neutral state were judged to have acted correctly."

"1.14 We are but servants of the Most High. Still…"

He reaches both hands out towards the vessel.

"1.15 I think it best I probe a little more deeply before taking such action. I am much troubled by-."

He shudders, his eyes glowing white-.

"1.16 Heretic!"

Diana and I lunge through the tube as the angel takes a breath to fire off a song. She pulls ahead, coming up from underneath him and punching him right in the diaphragm. He bends, a shocked expression on his face as I drop down on top of him and bite down on his owfuckingarmour!

"1.17 Brothers, I am-!"

Diana punches him in the forehead, sending us tumbling through the air as-. Yes! Neck, b-ow! We slam into one of the virtualisation vessels and my vision glitches, the angel falling through my coils as if they weren't there. For a moment I see a peaceful pastoral scene, men and women working in a field of… Corn? And then I'm back in the room with Diana and people really need to expect more from Heaven.

Oh right, I can't fly anymore.

I slam into a rack of virtualisation vessels, my bulk uncoiling and causing me to hit parts of a row of them. Flashes of rehabilitation program flicker through my mind as I smash into several at once before Diana throws the angel at me! I twist in the air, trying to get an angle-.

He hits me about a third of the way down my length, and I try and loop around-. Can't get a grip! The angel recovers enough to push me away, though I manage to hit his left wing hard enough to stop him flying away. He falls with me as I try to get-.

A song of glory and peaceful authority resonates through the chamber. The angel and I are both stunned, falling freely for a moment before Rrall catches me and Angelica…

Ugh.

Angelica hovers in place in front of the angel, singing beautifully as he blinks, his expression of hate replaced by one of beatific wonder. Freedom.

Right. Let's go with the confrontational option.

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December
Early morning

Fucking angels managed to make me miss Christmas.

I twist my head in the direction of the still-shaking angel who works here. "Feeling any better?"

"2:1 I… I don't understand!"

"What exactly is it about this situation that you don't understand?"

"2:2 How could we have been so deluded? We-. I believed that the power of God would only answer those who acted in accordance with His holy mission. And… Minor contradictions… Yes, we are imperfect agents… Miscommunications happen. But not only did Rrall legitimately query the orders which gave rise to these virtualisation vessels, they contradicted him and ordered me to strike him down as though the Mind of God itself had issued the directive! And then Gabriel -who is now a woman, somehow- contradicted that! I had not even heard that he had been redeemed, let alone that he has such authority."

Pointing out that she was only able to do that by combining Mr Free's freedom-godhood with her stolen theurgy probably won't help him. But again, I'm faced with a religious fanatic who isn't really such a bad sort when he doesn't think that you're evil.

"2:3 And you-. What are you?"

"I'm a-" Somewhat. "-innocent man killed due to the same… Hierarchical confusion."

"2:4 Killed? How?"

Karrien Excalibris, with the burning sword, in Labyrinth.

"The being who has learned to work around the safeguards in the Silver City's magic systems used its knowledge to enter an apparently legitimate order that I be killed. As a result, a rather large force of angels attacked Earth. We are presently working to restore the Silver City to full functionality."

"2:5 God bless you."

The sound of Angelica's singing resonates around the towers of virtualisation vessels as does… Whatever being the God of Freedom means that he needs to do to apply the Spear of Destiny. I wonder if it's going to affect me? I'd like to think not, but then I'm not… Currently imprisoning anyone.

Apart from arguably Rrall.

They'd have considered that, ri-?

I hear the slight change in the background noise as the rings around the virtualisation vessel they're working on slow in their rotation, the outer layer of runes flat out evaporating and leaving smooth metal in their place.

"Okay, that should do it." Mr Free floats backwards away from the vessel, Spear still in hand. "No more connection to the Source for Boss Smiley."

Diana nods. "Now all that we need to do is confront…"

Rrall looks around as if just coming out of a mild daze, and I can see within him that the orange poison I injected him with is entirely gone. He blinks, then flaps his wings and flies towards me.

"Before you say anything, you work for an organisation that had just murdered me. My action was entirely reasonable and proportionate."

"3:1 I was trying to help you, to help all of the souls in our care. We were having a civil conversation until you bit me."

"And we kept having a civil conversation afterwards and uncovered what was really going on."

"3:2 You could have asked. Even if I had decided to say 'no', I-."

"We asked him." I jab the tip of my tail in the direction of… I turn my head towards the other angel. "What's your name?"

"2:6 Sariel."

"We asked Sariel. And what happened? New orders: kill whoever told you to check this. I can barely fight in this form."

"3:3 You had no way to know that I would need to check anything! You simply assaulted me because you believed that it was easier than taking a slight chance-"

"Less of the slight."

"-that I might act against you." His eyes narrow slightly. "You are a most unpleasant snake, and I will pray for your enlightenment."

"Too late on both counts." I slither away from the angels and towards the superheroes. "Are they all out?"

Diana shakes her head. "We have elected to leave the illusion active and merely break the link between the Source and Boss Smiley. The Host can decide what to do with the souls committed to their care."

"Assuming they actually are committed to their.. care."

Jade, then Hades. Or possibly Jade, Eris, Hades-. No, rings, Jade, Eris, Hades. I doubt very much that Donna is totally immune to the call of the orange light.

Diana smiles kindly at me. "You have not worshipped the gods of Olympus for long, Paul. And you were born in a Christian country. Building bonds of the spirit takes time." I nod dejectedly, though I doubt that anyone looking at me could tell that. "Mister Miracle, are you experiencing any ill-effects from the Spear?"

"No… Actually, using it feels natural, like some types of Apokoliptian technology. Are you.. sure this came from Earth?"

Angelica glances at it uncomfortably. "It was used to kill Jesus Christ. I doubt that.-"

"2:7 No, it wasn't."

Angelica frowns. "It wasn't?"

Rrall nods in support of his colleague. "3:4 Aside from the obvious fact that his name was 'Joshua' and not 'Jesus', that spear is clearly not in the Roman style. Legionaries were issued with light and heavy javelins for throwing, rather than true thrusting spears like that." He takes a closer look. "But it does feel earthly in origin."

Before we can get too off track… "Where next, sir?"

"6:1 All loyal servants of the Lord God! Harken to my words!"

"Hssssssss-." Why am I hissing?

"6:2 The Silver City is besieged! Stand guard and hold fast against the Enemies of Righteousness!"

Mr Free nods. "If he's not affected by Boss Smiley's magic anymore-."

"6:3 The legions of Hell assail our walls while the vile criminal I slew at the behest of God Almighty runs free in our halls!"

"Oh. Well, forget I said anything."

Angelica frowns. "Demons..?"

"Aren't demons ludicrously vulnerable to theurgy?"

Mr Free shakes his head. "You saw the same armies I did. They handled everything except Karrien himself. And if that was most of the Host's military force…"

"They might actually win. And-."

There's a flare of light from the entryway as a squad of warrior angels teleports in!

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December
A little later still

I keep my head low, slithering for cover behind the slumbering saint's virtualisation vessel as the warrior angels get their bearings.

"3:1 Peace, brothers." Sariel walks towards them with his open hands slightly raised. "The Archangel of War is operating in ignorance of the full facts."

A shrill shriek from the lead war angel slams into him, knocking him off his feet and sending him hurtling down the aisle!

"1:1 Be silent, Fallen One! You will be judged for your crimes soon enough!"

Rrall takes a moment to look at their armour and weapons and then literally bows out, stepping aside as they advance and genuflecting from the waist.

Diana steps forwards. Her arms are raised in a position which will allow her to block attacks with her bracers, but she's still not taking overt aggressive action. Oh come on! Angels respawn! And even if they didn't, these ones are clearly arseholes who could stand to have a bit of the arsishness beaten out of them!

"Soldiers of the Silver City, I am Diana, Princess of Themyscira-."

"1:2 We know who you are, Olympian. Your status does not grant you any privileges."

"1:1 I order you to stop."

The advancing angels freeze as Angelica raises her right hand, eyes blazing with golden light. I'm not an expert on the angelic hierarchy, but if she's essentially working off Gabriel's permissions she might well be able to overrule-.

"1:2 Gabriel was cast down, Abomination! He could not give us orders, and you certainly cannot."

I duck as the choir's song harmonises and the air in the aisle vibrates. Mr Free winces and ducks behind Diana, something that must be second nature after working with Barda for so long. Diana raises her arms, bracers crossed and the defensive magics laid therein turned up to the most powerful level. I watch the air ripple around her, the area immediately around her still and calm while outside of that aura is rippling like an ultrasonic scalpel.

The angels stop advancing, wings spreading as they focus on their song. Mr Free is fiddling around with one of his devices, but it shouldn't be possible to interfere with the angels' theurgy. Unlike what Boss Smiley -and hopefully Karrien- are doing, it's a natural ability. You can't just cut it off-.

He throws something, the object passing as close as possible to Diana's bracers before flying out into the vibrating field. It's.. shaking a little, but it's surviving the force remarkably well. Assuming that the attack is purely kinetic energy that's not too surprising. I'm not sure how a Terminan kinetic shield would survive force applied in that way, but-.

The projectile flies toward the lead angel, who pauses his singing just long enough to slash through it with his sword. It breaches the outer case easily-.

Causing the kaahuite inside to explode outward in all directions. The angels stop singing at once and try to spread out, though I notice two quietly coughing. Okay, their formation is broken… I slither another row over and then head towards them along the ground. One lucky bite is all that I-.

Diana's already on them, lunging through the air and punching the lead angel in the side of the head. He hits the ground with enough force to send kaahuite powder blasting away in all directions, and doesn't rise. Diana turns, her left bracer turning aside a flaming sword before cracking the owner's jaw with her counter.

Slither slither slither…

Diana turns, trapping a sword between her bracers and holding it there despite the exertions of its wielder. A spear-wielding angel stabs at her back but misses as she flies up without compromising her hold.

And the spear-wielder wasn't watching me. I coil and spring, my body landing on his wings and shoulders and bearing him to the ground. Spears are generally a better weapon than swords, but when there's a giant snake already inside your reach a short blade is much better. He turns his head to try and sing at me but I dart my head forward and sink my fangs into his head too quickly for him.

"1:1 Graaghuhmerciful Lord."

Urgh, I tasted him. Urr, I've got angel blood in my mouth. Bleu-agh!

I roll aside as one of his more situationally aware colleagues thrusts his spear at me, but since I'm still wrapped around my current victim it's a decidedly clumsy move. Fortunately for me, Angelica has had time to grab my target's spear and a moment later brings the haft down on my attacker's head. The blow merely staggers him, but gives her enough time to drop the weapon, grab his head with both hands and pull him closer. She then sings… Something quiet, I don't catch it, and he slumps to the ground.

I unbind my new recruit and pull myself free and Diana binds the last angel in her lasso. "Should probably keep hold of that spear."

"I…" She overcomes her reluctance with a shake of her head and bends down to pick it up.

Back down the aisle Mr Free helps Sariel to his feet and checks him over for serious injuries. Rrall approaches and starts performing a similar check on the squad which attacked us, sparing only an uncomfortable glance for the one I bit. Ugh, still got silver blood on my lips-. My muzzle?

"Angel blood's not a demon aphrodisiac or anything, is it? Because I've got a meeting with Satanus later…"

Angelica whistles, and I feel it flake away as she turns around to face Diana. Diana in turn is consulting Rrall.

"How soon will they be reinforced?"

"4:1 That… Depends. I do not believe that they specifically called for aid, and if there is another attack occurring then it may be some time. I'm afraid that I am not well versed in the Silver City's defence plans."

"Hamaliel or Karrien, sir?"

She shakes her head. "If demons are attacking, our first priority should be to stop them. Rrall, can you lead us to the closest observation point?"

"4:2 We would usually simply fly upward, but-. Yes. This way, please."

She glances back at Sariel. "Will you be alright?"

He's upright, but silver blood is leaking through his clothing and he's looking decidedly unsteady. "3:2 I will recover. Please, defend our city and our holy task where I cannot."

"We will do our utmost. Rrall, lead the way."

Rrall flaps his wings, moving at speed towards the entrance. Diana, Mr Free and Angelica foll-.

I look at my tail.

"You, angel, what's your name?"

"Echielias."

"Alright Echielias, this is going to be awkward for both of us, but I need you to either carry me or teleport me to Hamaliel's workshop."

He kneels down and scoops up a handful of my body. "With the Silver City under attack the anti-teleportation wards have been activated. I would need higher authorisation than I have to teleport myself. And I think it unlikely that Karrien Excalibris will grant it."

"True."

I wrap myself around him as best as I can without constricting his wings. Okay, that… Feels about done. Echielias tests his range of motion for a moment and then leaps, his wings beating and his vocal cords singing as we fly outside.

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December
Later still

There's something in the air, a shimmering around the buildings which I assume comes from their protective magic. Actually…

"Why aren't the demons just flying over?"

"While it is a slightly crude way to describe it, there essentially isn't an 'over' to the Silver City. The walls block all access points. Anyone who wishes to assail us must either pass through or over them."

I had thought this place was a bit literal. "How about under it?"

He flies us out into the open and then pumps his wings hard. Towers flash past us as we rise… The towers seem to rise higher than…

Ah, no, I misunderstood. The Silver City doesn't have a wall, but it doesn't float over a void. Now that I've got a better angle I see that there are some fairly substantial lands beneath it. And at the edge of those, a vast silver wall.

It must be quite a nice place to visit.

I stare out into the intervening space as Echielias lands us on a balcony. No, can't see the rest of the party. They might have used the boom tube thing… Or an actual boom tube if they're planning on assisting the Host openly. Now that we've cut him off from Boss Smiley, Mr Excalibris must be capable of prioritising, surely?

In either case there's nothing I can really do there. I unwind myself from Echielias and slither along the smooth floor. This.. corridor looks somewhat familiar. I think.

"Which way?"

Echielias strides past me and heads down the corridor. I try to follow, but fall behind as squiggling with part of your body upright is a lot harder than the lamia make it look. I think I'm just going to have to bear the indignity. I drop my head to near-floor level in.. what actually feels like a more natural position, and start squiggling in earnest. Come on, I can't get tired… Can I? No, I've got nothing to have lactic acid in. Okay, wiggling back and forward in a way which I'm confident would make me dizzy if I had an inner ear, but at least I'm making decent forward progress.

Echielias picks up the pace as well, and we-. I glance left as we pass a doorway, and that was Rrall's office. Excellent! And I can hear the sound of what I think is Hamaliel's song-.

One of his assistants steps out through a doorway a short distance ahead of us. He raises his right hand in greeting to Echielias, but freezes slightly when he spots me as well.

"Greetings, Melachus. How goes the day?"

"1:1 The Earth is engulfed in a flaming cage, several virtualisation vessels are reporting error states and an army of demons lay siege to Heaven. There have been better days. But it gladdens me that you have brought our guest back."

He doesn't sound very glad.

"1:2 But I am afraid that repairs to his containment vessel are not yet complete. We overestimated rather severely the effectiveness of our planar shielding. We're having to redesign the entire outer ring-."

"Yes, I need to talk to the three of you about that."

Melachus doesn't back up a pace, but it clearly takes an effort.

"1:3 I thought that you might. Does it absolutely need to be the three of us?"

"I'm afraid so."

"1:4 Well.. then… Come on in?"

"Thank you."

Melachus steps back into the room and we follow, prompting Hamaliel to look up from his engraving bench.

"2:1 I'm afraid that I'm not quite ready yet."

"Hamaliel, I couldn't help but notice a rune on the outer circle of some of these vessels which resembles a smiley face. What does it do?"

"2:2 A smiley face?"

"Yes, you know, as a personal identification rune. It's not yours, is it?"

"2:3 No. No. Just a moment." He walks over to a writing desk and leafs through a thick tome there. "That was added in.. revision..." He frowns, flicking rapidly back and forth through a cluster of pages. "I… I remember including it, but I can't see… I included a communication system so that we could… Could monitor…" His eyes widen. "We were supposed to be monitoring you, I clearly wrote that down. Why didn't I..?"

"If you are ordered to forget something, do you?"

"2:4 I don't… Understand. Ordered? By whom?"

"By someone using redirected theurgical magic to fake having the authority to give you orders."

"2:5 Yes, there are forms of words which could have that effect. I would need to speak to the kings to get permission to recover them. You mean that someone ordered me to grant them access and then to forget about it?"

"There's a certain amount of circumstantial evidence that something like that has happened. Including vessels in the main hall which were being used to house the souls of human theurgists."

"2:6 We don't have the authority to bind theurgists! Such a thing-!"

"You were deceived, it happens. Who has authority to countermand every potentially compromised order?"

"2:7 Just-. Just the kings."

"Then we need to get hold of them. How do we do that?"

"2:8 We are under attack. They will be on the walls at the cardinal points, directing the defence."

And one of them liked the cut of my jib.

"Which one is King Asmodel occupying?"

"2:9 The Gate of Earth. Though given his righteous wrath, it is likely that he has taken to the field in person."

I'm not going to test my luck against a demon army as a spirit snake.

"And the others?"

"2:10 King Aariel of the Lion Host is no less wrathful than King Asmodel of the Bull Host. And properly speaking I should bring the issue to my own king in the first instance. King Raphael will be at the Gate of Water. We should find him as swiftly as possible."

"Lead on. I'll be happy to explain it in full to him. But I'll probably need someone to carry me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December
On the home stretch

A flight of armoured angels gestures at us to land in no uncertain terms on the inner battlement of Heaven's wall. Hamaliel moves his hands over his chariot's controls and we begin our descent. But first…

"Echielias, if I removed my venom from you, would you feel obliged to attack me?"

"I do not believe so. You are contained and surrounded by warrior angels, and travelling into the presence of King Raphael. He can judge you better than I."

"Alright then. Bend down, will you?"

He crouches, and I press my mouth to the wound on his face. No idea whether or not I can actually do this, but it can't hurt my standing if I turn up without a mind controlled angel. I focus on the wants and drives I injected into him, carefully identify how they're linked into his existing drives and carefully suck at them.

For a moment not much happens, then I feel them start to weaken and fade. And something is arriving back in my mouth. Tastes like.. angel blood and need. Echielias gasps and pulls himself away, right hand shoving me off while his left clasps his newly reopened stab wound.

"2:1 Off, foul… Creature!"

"I was trying to remove my poison. If you want to keep it, or if you think you can heal yourself from an exotic energy infection which you're the second angel to ever be exposed to, be my guest."

He regards me loathingly for a moment, then reluctantly bends down.

"2:2 Finish your… Work."

I could make a joke about it, but I think it would be in poor taste. One last suck and I've got everything but the dregs. And they're sticking rather better and I'm nothing like good enough at this to remove them safely.

I pull away and turn my attention to the battlement as we land. White.. stone… Somehow, and I can see the runes carved into it. Looking upwards I can see machines similar in style to the angel ships, which I presume serve as the angels' artillery. I'm not hearing anything that suggests shooting.

Hamaliel steps solemnly onto the battlement and another angel steps forward to meet him. Hamaliel starts whispering urgently, and the other angel looks momentarily shocked. Then they do the theurgical test of honesty I've seen before. Hamaliel apparently passes because the other angel then turns his attention to me.

"1:1 You, snake. Come forward."

I… Carefully slither off the chariot, once again accepting the indignity of having my head this close to the ground.

"I am the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps, and I was recently condemned to death by the same broken system which caused Hamaliel to make corrupted 'virtualisation vessels'. I-."

"1:2 You? You were the one who lured the army of the Host into the demons' trap?!"

"I didn't make anyone follow me. Any angel who came after me received what they were actively trying to give. And if they weren't acting on proper orders, if they were working for someone who was manipulating the Host, then they weren't in the right."

"1:3 I read your record when you were condemned. You should have been grateful that you were to be granted a chance to redeem you-."

"I DON'T care what you think! You've already demonstrated a lack of basic data security. Every single one of your orders could have come from anywhere! Not just the commandment which condemned me, but every moral precept which your self-righteousness is built on. You have no credibility with me!"

"1:4 Our morals are-."

"1:1 Not 'every', young man."

The angel before me stops speaking at once and steps aside as.. an angel in radiant white robes and silver armour strides forth. The helmet has a distinctly crown-like quality to it. I instinctively bow my head for a moment before I notice who is following on behind him. Karrien Excalibris narrows his eyes at me, but doesn't say anything. He appears to have added the Sword of the Fallen to his own pair.

"King Raphael. Thank you for granting me this audience at what I'm sure must be a trying time."

"1:2 Word of what has occurred has already reached the ears of my brother King Aariel. The daughter of Gaea holds the wall in his stead that he may properly investigate the issue. Have you further news?"

"3:1 My king, there is some evidence that I have been ordered to forget corrupting the project. Notes… Irrational modifications whose purpose I no longer recall. Unless it was by your order, please, I beseech you, restore my memories that I may explain myself."

"1:3 By the power vested in me by God Almighty, I so order."

A faint golden light shines out of Hamaliel's eyes and mouth, and he blinks heavily.

"1:4 Speak, my son. Tell me how this 'Boss Smiley' so deceived-."

"3:2 It wasn't him."

What?

"1:5 Hamaliel, explain yourself."

"3:3 It wasn't him! No demon could give me orders!"

Huh? I mean, I'd just assumed that he'd snuck in and slipped a memo into someone's in tray, but I suppose that would have been a bit too easy.

"1:6 Then who? Who ordered that you-?"

Oh shit, it actually was-.

"3:4 King Asmodel."

King Raphael doesn't shout or flinch, but there is a slight tensing in his wings. "1:7 You are certain?"

"3:5 Yes. Just the initial order. After that… It just felt natural."

King Raphael raises his right hand in benediction, gold light flowing between it and Hamaliel's forehead. Then he lowers his hand and bows his head.

"1:8 Your honesty is confirmed, though perhaps under the circumstances I should not depend on such methods. King Asmodel will have to be… Questioned, once the current crisis is resolved. For now, rest easy knowing that you have acted as properly as you could have."

Hamaliel nods, though he doesn't look much relieved. So that's going to get resolved, but there's still the ongoing incursion on Earth to stop.

"Excuse me? I realise that you're needed here, but could you do something about the giant flaming cage around Earth?"

"1:9 I have not yet found in King Asmodel's disfavour-."

"And you can always put it back later, but it seems to me that at the very least the order to create it was of dubious validity. It's also creating major problems with navigation and I've got a Lantern Corps trying to get in. Quite aside from my own effectiveness in combat being increased by possession of a power ring, my comrades could significantly contribute to the Silver City's defence." Huh. "Also, who owns the army on the far side of the wall?"

"1:10 I am not sure that allowing you access to your allies is wise. I will consider the matter. The demonic army that stands before these walls flies the standard of Lord Satanus."

"I… Might be able to persuade him to negotiate. But you need to get moving on your internal-."

I shudder as a moan of utter desolation echoes around the-. The interior walls. Swinging my head around I scan the perimeter-.

And my eyes alight on the giant hole with the demon horde surging through it.

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th December
Via roadworks

I can barely see from here, but it looks like-.

One of the wall-mounted support weapons turns away from the exterior and fires, scouring a section of the wall clear of defenders.

"Asmodel's gate?"

Hamaliel's clutching his ears. "4:1 What was that?"

"6:1 A weapon forged in the deepest pits of Hell." Mr Excalibris looks to his king. "By your leave, sire."

"2:1 Go. Bring this madness to an end."

Mr Excalibris raises his right sword, a gesture mirrored by about… One quarter of the angels I can immediately see. Then he leaps, wings beating as he flies towards the breach with his retinue.

"And we're sure that he's trustworthy, are we?"

"2:2 This is the first time that these walls have ever been breached. Whatever orders he was given, the need to act against demonic intrusions is built into us. He will fight." He looks down at me. "Know you aught of this weapon?"

"Remember that time you cast down Gabriel for unknowingly having sex with a succubus?"

"2:3 There was more to it than that."

"You used a person as a killing machine for thousands of years and you were surprised when he started finally having doubts." Not worth it. "Point is, the demons found a way to hook him up to whatever the heck it is that the Masak Mavdil is built over so that now when he sings theurgical stuff gets unmade."

"2:4 He willingly-?"

"I don't believe that they sought his consent. Look, I can't fight like this. If you-?"

BOOM!

Looks like the League have decided that secrecy is no longer required. William Batson is through first… Yes, burning pentagram banner, those are Neron's troops. The comparative scarcity of ranged weapons amongst their number giving them a decided disadvantage against the arcane lightning blasting from his sword. Their loose formation initially prevents them from defending as effectively as they did against the angels' attack in Hell, but they form up fast and their enchanted shields can soak magic-based attacks reasonably well.

Then Kal-El follows his colleague through and opens up with his entirely physics-based heat vision. And… It looks like he's being intelligent enough to keep back out of melee range of the ground troops. Winged skirmishers dive at him, but are swiftly tutored in the fact that while he doesn't have any specific natural resistance to magic, he does have two perfectly functional fists as well as a perfectly functional brain. He effortlessly outflies them, ducking and diving around their clumsy swings and striking them with his fists while maintaining his glowing red barrage against their ground bound allies.

"If you remove the flaming cage I can call in my Corps. And if you let me communicate with Satanus I can probably negotiate something."

King Raphael throws his head back and shouts a ringing note into the air. A moment later I faintly hear a response from another part of the wall. He nods to me.

"2:5 It is done. Now explain why you wish to communicate with the demon lord."

"We have an understanding. He gains power by improving the lot of the damned, I coordinate certain things with him. I want to find out why there's an army of demons-."

"2:6 It seems simple to me. Undermine the magics which guide us and empower us, corrupt King Asmodel into opening the gate for them and then charge the Silver City and reduce it to ruins."

"Okay, and that might help him get a better class of guest, but it also means having to deal with any human theurgists up close and personal if he occupies the place, and you'll just rebuild if he doesn't. And he's competing with Neron for influence and those are Neron's troops opening the breach." Grh. "Also, I need an outside line to tell my Corps where they need to show u-."

BOOM!

My Agent!

"Or maybe not."

BaBUM.

I look down and through my own scales see a glowing heart beating in my chest.

BaBUM.

I glow brighter-

BaBUM.

-and rise into the air. Growing in size as I do so. Now this is what existing as a soul with the sort of bond to the orange light that I have should feel like!

"Illustres to Clarissi Dox. Please acknowledge."

"Status report."

I suppose that if there's one man I could rely on to keep a level head in a situation like this…

"The semi-divine functionaries of Earth's Source-worshipping religions are fighting amongst themselves. While normally I'd say leave them to it, they appear to have root command access to the fabric of the universe. We need to normalise things."

"The Ophidian reported your death."

"I'm working on fixing that. I just thought that this was more urgent."

"Agreed." He didn't even pause. "I'm sending Lanterns through the boom tube to report to you. Others will remain on Earth to aid local authorities."

"Thank you." Over in the combat zone I spot Mr Fei counter the songs of the traitorous angels while the Flash attempts to assault the wall. "Tell them to look for the giant orange snake."

"2:7 What are you?"

"As I said, I'm the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps. And-."

And while I'm still asking permission to talk to Satanus, I'm only asking for a given value of 'asking'. That's what I was going to say. But I'm going to be called to account for everything that's happened today and yesterday, and that's going to be a good deal easier if I stay polite.

"And since Satanus' force is largely comprised of the damned and you have a new initiative to redeem the damned, that suggests that you consider them worth talking to."

"2:8 There is a great difference between attempting to redeem them and treating with them before they are redeemed."

"You tolerate other afterlives, don't you?"

"2:9 Because they are finite. The laws of entropy will not allow them to be sustained forever. Besides,-" He looks over to the swirling melee near Asmodel's gate. "-now that Karrien has arrived, I am confident that the matter is in hand."

Karrien turns in the air, raises his swords and incinerates his escort.