⍭he ℱallen

​

Richard sat back on the staircase. Ever since the gates were risen it was just wave after wave of demon. Almost as if the entirety of hell was trying to force their way up this small little gateway. Ah well, there just somethings you were duty bound to do, and lifting these gates up and protecting them was just one of those things. And so, Richard continued to sit there, creating hellfire mist spears that fired out and impaled demons.

He then turned to see that there were others joining in on the demon killing. That newbie with the plants seemed to be doing alright, though she seemed to be arguing with herself every now and then, and then there was Alistair. He seemed to be perfectly fine, continuing to kill these demons with his own Archer powers. Richard decided it'd be good idea to see where his head was at. It wasn't that he didn't trust him, it was just that he was curious about the man. Standing up, he created a white mist spear that followed him around for a bit. He then fired it at a single demon that was around Alistair. After entering the body the mist seemed to disperse, only to fire out more spears from the body, impaling nearby demons.
"So, you seem to be adjusting quite fine I see." Richard waved to Alistair. "I'm actually kind of curious. As Caius told me, you always seemed willing to join us. I'm pretty curious as to why you were with the forces of hell up until now. Also, based on what Sal has told us about you in your encounters, why the hell did they even keep you alive?"

 

If Allen was some kind of pyromanic or anything along those lines, then he would really be enjoying the sight before him. Demons after demon either on fire or a burning corpse on the ground. It certainly was a sight to see let alone be the cause of it. Fortunately one of the many things that he'd worked on with Nuriel was to better control the flames he produced.

While he still wasn't told if he could actually burn himself with the flames that he made and since Nuriel didn't seem to answer him any time he asked about it, he just went with the assumption that he could. That aside, the training to get to this point was often times questionable, especially when it came down to the methods that were used to get this far. Especially considering that his inner world was already basically a ring of fire, well the place he was at was.

As another demon attempted to approach him, it soon joined the other burning demons before him. If only he let one of them get close enough to him so that he could use his sword, then he could use some of the other things that he learned how to do. However Allen would prefer not to have one demon lead to an entire squad of them flying towards him, so he merely sighed before going back to keeping a lookout for any approaching demons.

 

​

There was silence from Regulus as he stared at the boy and his strange request. After a few seconds Regulus merely stared over at the sleeping chimera on the operating table and stared down at it. "Humans...are such interesting beings..the things they do due to boredom..." Regulus said before closing his eyes.

"There is little you can help with..Your body is nothing more than a human's and I've already dealt with enough humans...should you desire any physical enhancements then I can arrange something of the sort, but for simple research I will pass..." Regulus said. "If you desire, you are free to fight the upper classed demon. Though not much, they will still form some form of challenge" Regulus said before staring at his doll "perhaps you will desire to face her? I assure you she will prove to be that of a challenge" Regulus said speaking confidently about his doll before turning back to the chimera.

"...you can always face me if you desire, I've haven't had a true sparring partner ever since Alistair left, but if fighting will not ease the boredom, perhaps hell is not the place you should be seeking entertainment in..." Regulus said.

 

Spoiler: Goodbyes

"Alice... seriously. I-"
"I'm not leaving you here alone."
"Love, I don't want you to get hurt..."
"Laur, do you really think I'll care if I get hurt? I have been to Hell and back. Literally."
"Alice, what are you going to do when all of these demons come and I can't come over and protect you."
"I can protect mysel-"
"Alice please. I want to know that if we do save the world, that if I made it or not, you did."
"Lauren are you alrig-"
"I'm fine love. I'm fine."
"...Are you sure?"
"Iris and some of the ankle biters were leavin today. Maybe you can get a ride with them."
"Laur-"
"I will be fine. I'll come back, we'll get a new home, we'll get some new animals, and I'll lose a couple bran-cells again."
"Brain...brai-"
"Hey that's the first mistake I've made today... I hear enough corrections from the man, Love."
"...Please please stay as safe as you can."
"I will. I love you Alice."
"I love you too."

Lauren was doing what some of the others had been doing. Fighting the demons. Why not? She really did have nothing better to do now that Alice was gone. And training sure as hell wasn't going to hurt her at this point.

Every since the last time Lauren's story has been touched upon, she has had mental training all day, everyday. But it had nothing to do with powers or anything. It was literally Ahriman trying to make Lauren somewhat normal in intelligence. Which may sound stupid but in the end there was a very good reason why Ahriman did this.

Lauren held out her sword, or axe. It was an axe now. She finally had come up with a name for it and it only made Alice face palm. Ahriman had been telling her the real name repeatedly but he gave up because clearly according to Lauren, Joey was better than Zahhak.

Lauren kept fighting demons, consciously aware that nearby was one of the newbies Sven. Which, she wasn't quite sure if she had actually seen him do anything before today. In fact, she was starting to wonder what the kid had been up to. But before she got the chance to run over and ask another demon came up next to her and got her bad arm.

In a semi-freakout, Lauren shot off something towards the demon, it almost looked like a red dust, but it missed and headed straight for Sven. Sven seemed to stand completely still after that, and Tiia who happened to be nearby ran over and killed the demons aiming to attack the two. She walked over to Sven and asked if he was alright but the red dust seemed to affect her too and she stood absolutely still with him.

Lauren walked over cautiously and saw the dust eventually disappear. She tapped the two on the shoulder and spoke, "Mates?"

Sven quickly hit her hand aggressively and shouted, "¡No me toques hijo de puta!"
"Ära puutu tema! Sitapea!"
"Mates, are yallright?"

Right at that moment the two pulled out the swords and aimed for each other's throats and Lauren let out a scream and tried to keep the two apart, "Friends! Go after the demons not each other! Please stop!"

Lauren fought to keep the two apart until Sven finally got Tiia's leg and Lauren let out a scream, "ENOUGH!" the two stopped immediately and Lauren whispered, "Go after the demons, or I'll knock you both out."

The two seemed eager to get at each other's throats again until demons popped up and attacked. Tiia and Sven both went after them without stopping to take a breath and kept on going. Lauren stared in absolute horror at the scene.
​

 

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A single slash and the demon before him was cleaved in two. He knew none of the demons before him ever truly gave a damn about their fallen comrades and he knew they didn't even hold a shred of fear. They were mindless beings and Alistair could not hate that, but pity it instead. There was a short pause of demons as they prepared for another attack but one of them near to him was killed as Richard made his appearance into the fray.

It was inevitable that he would be asked such questions and truth be told he himself did not truly hold the answers himself. "It was simple...they asked first..." Alistair said closing his eyes calmly as he slashed a demon that tried to attack during the conversation. "I prefer to see myself more as the neutral party, even now... I am the host of Azrael, one who governs death, and let me tell you, humans are such disgusting...yet beautiful creatures..such contradictory creatures." Alistair said calmly. "..in this war of worlds...I desired to see the perspective of both sides" Alistair said before chuckling.

"Regardless, it wasn't like I truly had much freedom, Temeluchas separated my heart from my body and held it hostage in order to have me do as she wished...As for why I am still alive? well it seemed Luficer desired that one of his generals would stay alive, but for the most part I truly worked under Temeluchas..." Alistair said

 

Adam realized fairly quickly that he had just indirectly offered himself up for testing, which luckily didn't seem to be the way Regulus needed it to go. So he instead mentioned things he could fight or spar with. He was pretty sure they should probably keep the demon for the big fight on Earth. But he wasn't sure if he wanted to fight the doll or Regulus himself.

Finally after a couple minutes he finally just blurted out, "The doll." Regulus spoke in a rather monotone voice, "How interesting." and then called for the doll to step forwards and prepare for battle. Adam in response unclipped the sword from his neck chain and let it grow to it's full size.
​

 

Alejandra Rojas
DAY: 88 | DATE: December 19th, 2013 [Thursday] | LOCATION: The Gates in Al-Qurnah​

Fending off the seemingly never-ending horde of demons was exhausting. She would kill one and two more would appear in its place ready to rush over her. They definitely had their small group of people outnumbered by a landslide, but they seemed relatively week, especially in comparison to some of the others that have had more time to train. It hadn't been too long since she joined the group and an even shorter still since she had actually figured out how to use her powers.

Fighting against the endless throng of fiends did provide an excellent opportunity for her to further hone her abilities. She had learned more offensive ways of using her barrier based powers. Dropping a large barrier on top of bunches of demons was an effective way of clearing them out, though continual creation of giant barriers was tiring. Intentionally destroying barriers was another effective, if risky, way of getting rid of a large crowd. The risk in this lay in the fact that the shards of energy that formed the barrier would fly in completely random directions and could potentially hit one of her allies.

She continued to fight off the demons, trying various things out with her barrier powers to see how else she could use them. As a demon rushed at her, an idea popped in her head and without hesitation, she tried to see if it would work. In an instant, the fiend's head was separated from its body, the head staying in place sitting on top of a razor thin barrier. "Holy crap, I can't believe I just pulled that off." However, she couldn't just sit there in wide-eyed wonder from how she just used her powers, not when there were more of these things to deal with.

 

​

His interest was drawn away from the chimera that he was working on and Regulus crossed his arms and stared over at Adam as the doll stood forward dressed in a cloak with long sleeves and covered with a mask. "Go..." Regulus commanded and with the command the doll immediately bolted forward straight at Adam.

Raising it's hand upwards, the sleeve fell downwards revealing metallic claws fused to the flesh of the doll's fingers. In a quick and fluid method the doll slashed downwards and reeled the other hand back ready to thrust forward at Adam should the attack be dodged or blocked. Unlike Regulus' other doll Antonio, this doll's movements were precise and smooth, as well as fast and strong.

 

Adam was both prepared and unprepared for that attack. He knew it was going to charge at him, but he didn't know how it would. He successfully managed to block the attack, but he felt himself recoil over how much strength this doll had.

Adam pulled away and released the mist from his hand so it would surround the sword. He stabbed at the doll and the mist shot in multiple directions from the blade. If the blade didn't stab the doll, he hoped to get at least a grip on it so he could attack it afterwards.
​

 

Sal was busy just dealing with the demons in his own way. His blade was actually just flying all over the place, slicing demons wherever the wind took it. He was more or less observing the activities of everyone else, and was grateful to see that Alistair had managed to assimilate rather well with them. And even Richard was talking to him, Richard not really ever doing anything when it came to interacting with people. Then there was something he totally wasn't expecting to see at all. It appeared that Sven and Tiia, two people had known had problems with each other in the past, were blanketed in this red mist thing. Then suddenly Lauren jumped in there, trying to calm them both down before they killed each other.

It was only when demons came in and tried to kill them both did they stop trying to kill each other and then savagely go after the demons instead. Not wanting them to run out of demons to kill, Sal grabbed a bunch with a large blast of air and sent them flying towards the two. When the demons landed, they took out some with themselves, but weren't dead yet, and were stunned at that, thus providing the perfect fuel for the battle crazed lunatics. Sal walked over to Lauren and simply said, "hello there Ms. Lauren. Am I correct to assume that these two trying to kill things as brutally as possible is caused by you?" Sal really only had the fact that Lauren wasn't effected by that mist, and the fact they were willing to kill demons as proof that it was Lauren's powers, though it could still be wrong.

 

​

Regulus watched on as the battle commenced. With the initial blow having been blocked, the doll thrust it's other hand forward at Adam who had managed to step back and avoid the blow. In response to the blow, the doll began to back away and move with each stab towards it. The sleeves were being slashed apart by the blade and some thrusts managed to knick the doll in various places, but it did not even react to those blows as it dodged the blade and used it's bladed arms to slash away the mist that was fired at it. Though it could dodge, it hardly had the moment to attack, waiting for an opportunity to attack.

 

Samuel Riviera
DAY: 88 | DATE: December 19th, 2013 [Thursday] | LOCATION: The Gates in Al-Qurnah​

As much as he enjoyed feeling the warmth of Hana next to him, there were things to be done. "I should probably go now. It'd be better to have as many people as possible defending the gates, just in case something happens." With a short kiss, Sam let go of Hana and made his way out of the hotel. Having a chat with her made it feel like a huge burden has been lifted from his chest.

As soon as he stepped out of the hotel, he made a mad dash towards the ever-growing mob of demons trying to get to the Gates. There was a lightness in his step as he ran. A smile crept across his face as the thought of sinking his blade into the enemy entered his mind. The moment he got to the battlefield, he explosively leapt into the fray. His blade, wreathed in crimson flames, slammed down on one of the fiends in front of him, cleaving him cleanly in half. As he continued to mow down heaps of demons, their limbs flew left and right. His mind and movements were utterly unclouded. Those actions were all those of certainty.

 

Lauren heard Sal speak, but she did not respond right away. She watched the two continue on their killing spree still in a daze. Lauren held up her hand to look at it and kept making the motion she had made to let the powder out before, but nothing came out luckily. She had forgot to consider that Sal was nearby and that the spell could have ended on a horrible note.

Lauren turned towards Sal finally to answer, "I did cause it, mate. But I'm not so sure what I did." she did the motion again in the opposite direction of Sal and then froze, because it did not work again. Lauren let out a sigh and looked back towards Tiia and Sven, who seemed to slowly but surely calm down. After about a minute Sven turned around and charged right at her and she back off and let out a squeak before Sven grabbed her.

"What the hell was that?!"
"I'm sorry mate! Please let go of-"
"What did you just do to us!?"
"I-I don't know! I let off some of that... dust stuff and then you and Tiia got in it and I AH-"

At that point Sven was holding her up to his eyesight, because Lauren was about half a foot shorter than Sven. He looked at her directly in her eyes and yelled, "I swear if I EVER have that happen to me a-"
"I can't control it! I'm sorry but I can't! You should spend more time fighting the demons rather than me!"

Sven's glare softened and he dropped her to the ground. He held out his sword and it set on fire and Lauren rolled her eyes and spoke, "If you are trying to intimidate me with fire it's not going to work. Everyone around here controls f-"

Lauren let out a scream as what appeared to be almost a whip nearly hit her. She stared at him in disbelief and shook her head and pointed in the direction of the hoard, "Don't threaten me, mate! Just go and help them out! Be pissed at me all you want later!"

Sven continued glaring at her as he turned around and returned to the crowd to continue fighting. Lauren grabbed onto Sal and spoke, "I don't think I can handle this." ​

 

DAY 89
Friday, December 20, 2013
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So here it was. The penultimate day to basically doomsday. Things seemed as normal as ever at the gates, though, as demons continued to swarm and rage towards them in an attempt to break them before Lucifer even made his way up and out of hell. And so, there he was, using his wind sword technique to mercilessly cleave the demons before they could even make their way to the stairs. There was a short bit of time left before things got real, and there was one member of their team who seemed to be more nervous about her own abilities than anyone else...other than Kai who was always unsure of himself. "Alright Lauren, I'm going to help refine your powers today, as it is almost literally now or never."

He stood there with her, wanting to be able to make sure that she had complete control of herself and what she was capable of. As shown from yesterday, her power clearly made people more aggressive...or at least far more vicious. Having some like that go out of control during the final battle could prove to be almost certainly deadly to them, and he wanted to make sure no mistakes would happen like that. "Now then, I guess some practice using it on people who aren't team members would be a good start. Just remember, we're angels so our power comes from belief. If you don't believe that you can do it, and do it properly, then you almost certainly won't be able to." Sal wasn't exactly an instructor, but hey, he had to try something with this girl.

 

Lauren really did not want to use these powers. She wasn't sure how obvious it was but she did not want her teammates to be attacking each other like Tiia and Sven had been. She looked around at some of the demons around and she replied, "But I don't know how I used that in the first place. How helpful would it even be in this big fight, mate? I don't think it'd be helpful at all..."

Lauren tried to remember exactly what happened when she shot off the dust. She looked towards her arm that still had the demon's scratch from yesterday and she moved it around and then pointed it in the direction opposite of Sal and she flicked her fingers and out came a small amount of the red dust, not nearly as much as she shot off towards Sven the day before.

Lauren jumped and then pushed Sal away from it and yelled, "DON'T TOUCH IT WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T TOUCH IT."​

 

As Lauren was explaining how she had literally had no idea how she even pulled it off in the first place. Well that was troublesome. That meant Sal was really going to have to dig deep in order to help her master what little use of these powers she had. As for what use it had...well he had a few ideas in mind what aggression powers could do, though he had no idea how far Lauren could progress in one day. It was then that she shoved him out of the way after creating some sort of red dust in her hand, shouting at him that he shouldn't touch it at all. Naturally, the first thing Sal wanted to do was touch it. However based on Lauren's urgency, he could only assume that this was what made Sven and Tiia go insane yesterday.

So this is what her power looked like. Interesting. It certainly seemed different from the traditional elemental like powers everyone had, and Sal could only wonder how it all worked. Though, he figured that touching it was basically going to make him become super savage, and that was just not good for a mentor to do. However, Lauren had used her power right here. That was a start. And figuring out just what it could do in its rawest most unrefined form was something else that was needed to be figured out. And so, Sal smirked and said, "well, you were able to spawn whatever your power really is, and that's something. However, let's see what it can do." Sal then waved his hand, creating a gust of wind to blow the dust in the general direction of the demons.