Evil's Return (redux) Chapter 1: First Day Jitters

[Bard The 5th LW]

Abdul took a look at the 2 other protectors in front of him, the Religion teacher looked like a rather bright man, someone who would do good at a teaching job, but the other one was a little confusing, he looked like a typical ridiculos teacher in outfit, but otherwise was somewhat intimidating, Abdul got a vibe that everything this guy does is a facade.
"Well why don't we introduce ourselves while we are waiting, I am Abdul-Rahim, I am 28 and with the Wardens, I specialize in sheilds and illusions, combat wise I have my 44. magnum, and some explosive and poison spells." He said, looking at the Religion teacher and Pamelia, figuring that the English teacher already knew these details.

[rapter200]

No one answered his calls, and so he ran like hell. Being on the top floor of this building was a problem because he couldn't find anything resembling a way to get downstairs. Luckily for him the halls were empty so he was able to pick up on the noise from some nearby conversation. He followed the voices pistol at the ready, the voices could be anything, even demons. As he turned the bend he thanked God that the demon rats with wings were not out here.

When he spotted the conversing group he was surprised to see three adults, and a young female student. She must be the mother of hell or the daughter of some rich parents who were able to insert body guards as teachers. What a coincidence that would be. As lowered his pistol, he didn't want to seem like a threat and get killed in some misunderstanding.

“and some explosive and poison spells.” is what he heard as he closed the large gap. “Well I am going to assume that this young lady here is the mother of hell, and you guys are protectors just like I am.” he said when he got near.

“Since it seems like were doing introductions I guess my real name will be needed. The name is Isaac Tanase, Pistol Artist and Sniper extraordinaire. All I am carrying with me at the moment is my automatic pistol. I got an anti-material sniper rifle, and a high caliber revolver in the trunk of my car, and I think we should get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

[Arcanum]

"We're waiting on a ride, and it should be arriving shortly," Marcus said to the newcomer, Isaac. "I'm Marcus Verreau. Fire and ice magics are my specialty as per the Divine Battle Creed, for those who are familiar with the Astral Light. My pistol is still in my desk, I didn't want to scare my class." A sudden realization hit Marcus and he practically face-palmed. "Oh shit my class! Oh well, I'm sure they're either having fun talking or they figured out there was a threat and ran for it. Our priority is Pamelia here, so it's not like I can go back and check on them."

[DanteFalcon]

Damien didn't notice the birds but he did hear the gunshots. He looked in alarm towards the building racing towards it and taking out his pistol.

"Shoulda stayed in the car. I at least could have had my hammer then"

He pushed through the doors, the gun at his side and looking for any demons. To his surprise there wasn't a demon though there was a crowd of students moving towards the door. He hid the firearm, pushing through the crowd and moving as best he could, and looking for any group of people who didn't belong.

It took him a few seconds amid the confusion but he noticed his demon sense prickling. Upon this discovery however he pushed through the crowd, heading towards the area his sense was pointing to.

[Teal Mage]

Lynn had slipped out of the classroom in the confusion, deciding that the Mother of Hell was safe for the moment. Surrounded by Protectors, at least a few of them had to be competent enough to protect her demonic pigeons. Hopefully, one of them could deal with magic if it came to that.

As for what he was doing now...

A possessed bird erupted into flames, a shard of violet ice embedded in its chest. Charred, feathers burned off and flight hopelessly fouled by the shard, the possessed creature fell to the floor, where it joined the scattered remnants of it's kin.

Someone had to clean up this mess.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

[PyrosNine]

"Ah! BIRDS! EVIL BIRDS! WHY?" Task yelled, running screaming out of the room, and down the hall, a flood of students behind him.

Then, just as quickly as he bolted, he stopped, and turned around, nearly being trampled by the other students. He waited, being a non-moving stone amongst the river of teenagers, and waited until he saw Laurella leave the room safe. Least, he was sure she was the Mother. Maybe. She didn't look like a mother. His impression of what a mother looked like was based on a sitcom he watched back in the orphanage, and he assumed a younger version.

But Laurella at least felt like a Mother of Hell. Probably because of her strong sword arm, and the way she once swooshed her air a bit dramatically. He wasn't sure about those girls she hung out with, but he was sure she just surrounded herself with pretty rich girls just to blend in.

Task waited in the shadows, behind lockers, in the throng of the crowd, and stayed out of sight. There were adults, and other students, who moved around the crowd with a purpose: the other Protectors, the people he had to avoid just as well. And of course, there were the evil shit-birds from hell. He didn't know, didn't understand, but they couldn't be good, and he would keep himself out of harm's way.

He ran past Laurella in a panic to get ahead of her as she was making her way with intent to get to the main entrance, whereupon he shut himself in a locker. Safe, silent, and perfectly natural for anyone trained in espionage. Or, hiding in general.

Laurella was talking with her friend, Pammy-or something, but Task couldn't hear a word that was said. There was so much noise going on in the school, and so little a space for sound to come into his locker. It was at this point he regretted his choice, as she was probably talking about some weird magic plan to save the school from demons or something. Maybe something with a fuku and a wand. He knew he should have opted instead for that empty cardboard box...

[Overcast]

"Indeed, not to be entirely cold but she always has to be above I assume there will be a time where a far more evident moral event will cause us to choose the greater good."

He continued to stare about for any sort of confrontation coming to them. He just wanted to get out now, but it was a good idea to have a properly mobile ride if the demons themselves were already mobile. He hated waiting at a location he was already found out though, it just wasn't his style,

"Agent Richard Miles. SECA. Marksman with a specialization in pistols. Master hand to hand combatant. Capable infiltrator. Proficient in torture, interrogation, and investigation. I also know a few tricks from some amusing days facing off with demons, nothing mystic just little battle tactics."

He looked out the door and just couldn't find it in himself to not be impatient, give him a controlled situation and he could be undercover for months. In the fray though he needed to return to control. Right now he was just waiting to be found, waiting to fight, waiting to escape. Waiting for situation for him to control again. Dammit Duncan get the lead out.

[mauve]

Matt's sulking was interrupted by a slight sensation of demonic energy entering the school, followed by a series of screams. Oh hell no.

"Aw hell!!" he yelped, falling off the windowsill. He staggered to his feet, digging his backpack out from under the sink. "What kind of crappy defenses do they have in this school?!" He dug around in the backpack, pulling out a handful of wooden sticks. Arrow shafts. It would have been impossible to smuggle a bow into a fully guarded school, so this was the next best thing. Heck, he was lucky to get these through the door, and he was honestly bewildered on how he managed to smuggle the hunting knife in. He pulled said weapon out of a paper lunch bag.

Well, at least he'd find the Mother of Hell now. He shouldered the bathroom door open, hitting an escaping student in the process. Whoops.

"Sorry kid," he grunted, leaping over the fallen student and running down the hallway. He had no idea what classroom the Mother was in, but he could sense where the demonic energy was coming from, and that was close enough.

He rounded a corner and ducked as a black object made a dive-bomb for his head. It missed its target and slammed into a locker. Unperturbed, it righted itself and chose a different victim.

"You're kidding me. Pigeons? Demon pigeons?" He was almost disappointed, until he saw his attacker join a massive swarm of black feathered creatures up ahead. They seemed to have come from one particular classroom, and were now sailing through the open door to converge around a group of people nearby. This group consisted of a handful of students-- mostly girls-- surrounded by heavily-armed teachers. Coincidence? Not bloody likely.

"Wasn't planning on introducing myself to her Protectors right away, but not much to do about that now," Matt grumbled to himself. He grabbed a single arrow from the bunch, holding the knife in his other hand.

"Holy Arrow!" he commanded. The arrow, marked along the shaft with sigils, burst into a white fire. He held it aloft. The smarter pigeons gave him a wide berth. But then most pigeons, demonic or otherwise, don't qualify for the term "smart."

"I thought you guys would have wards or something on this building!" Matt called to the Protectors. "I really wasn't expecting to do any actual work here until at least the fifth period." He made a face. "Whoa, hey, I'm on your side. Don't shoot me."

[Astral Harmony]

Pamelia rubbed her stomach. That's right. She had overslept and missed breakfast. "I hope this doesn't take forever. I swear, demons have no sense of moving on with things."

She examined her weapon. The blade from a paper cutter wasn't anywhere in the neighborhood of a demon slaying weapon, but Pamelia was going to do all right against some birds and even a few people with this is her practiced hand. "So, uhhh...does this mean that school's cancelled? 'Cause I was thinking that if it was, I'd be able to go home to see that anime called Shining Lancer Freilynn."

[Toastburner B]

His fears confirmed, Duncan floored the gas on his car...which was, if you want to be technically, already going well over the speed limit...and reached the front doors of the school in record time. However, in that brief period of time, he asked himself a simple question: Why demon pigeons?

Given the shear numbers alone, it was fairly obvious that there was a Hell Cult that was on to the fact that the Mother of Hell was attending Southcliff. And given the fact that they, at least, had the ability to summon a at least a hundred least or lesser demons, surely they had the pull to bring in a some really heavy hitters: a few blood-summoned, maybe even a hybrid.

"Maybe I shouldn't be complaining it's not a hybrid," Duncan muttered to himself.

Still, it made no sense. Even with hundreds of demon birds, it wasn't like they could pick Pamelia up and fly off with her. Given the size of them, they couldn't be that tough...chances were that the Protectors inside the school were holding their own just fine.

"So why the birds?" Duncan hissed to himself as he performed a hand-brake turn to pull into the school parking lot, "Is the cult leader a Hitchcock fan or something?"

He slammed on the breaks as he reached the main entrance of the school, and the answer suddenly came to him: Distraction. He looked around the parking lot as he leapt out of his car. Outside of a stream of students running for their cars, there was nothing out of the oridnary...certainly nothing that screamed "demon attack imminent".

If the birds were the distraction, where was the kicker coming from?

He attached his radio to his belt, dug through his pockets until he found an earpiece, and wired himself up. "This is Duncan, I'm at the front entrance," he said into it. He popped the trunk of his car, and pulled out what he called his "attack sack". His usual throwing knives were all well and good, but sometimes you need something that could carry more of a punch. "Does anyone have eyes on Pam?"

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Jared knew he had messed up...his lack-luster exorcism attempt had done nothing more but brought the demons to him...and by Pamelia. On top of that, he had lost track of her in the chaos of escaping the classroom.

The panic had passed, however. Now he was determined to make amends.

And after the quick run to his locker, he was now equipped to do just that.

He wasn't sure if it was the fact that he now had the one weapon he was comfortable with...his blade...or the fact that the shoe had dropped and now he didn't really have to worry about maintaining an air of normalcy, but he felt much more confidant now.

He was in a building swarming with least or lesser demons...this was an exorcists bread and butter.

In a small glass vial that was now hanging from his left hand, a small sliver of metal began to shake and bounce. It was a sliver from the sword of the demon Fratricide...and it reacted like this in the presence of demons.

A small group of the birds turned the corner, and flew straight at him. Jared lifted his blade and began to chant...it was one of first chants he had learned in his time as an exorcist, but also one of the most effective. As he swung his blade into the on-coming flock, the demons' flesh burned away before the blade even struck them...the rite of banishment severing their weak ties to this plane before the blade could cut their flesh.

Those demons taken care of, Jared worked his way towards the main foray, where the teacher/Protector had told the students to go. He suspected that a fair number of the students would of just made a run for it, but the figured at the other Protectors would keep Pamelia inside until transport could arrive.

After dodging/banishing a few more small flocks of demonic birds, Jared arrived in the foray, and quickly spotted Pam and the other Protectors. As he worked his way over to them, he quitely chanted, bringing up his protective shield. At the very least, it would hold the demons off of them for a bit. However, it was around then that he came to a realization.

"Hey!" he said, sliding to a stop near the group, "I'm glade we're getting along so well, but has anyone stopped to wonder why those things aren't swarming into here?"

Before anyone had a chance to answer, the sliver in the glass vial began to react...violently. Much more violently than it had with the birds. Seconds later, almost as if it was having a sympathetic reaction, the ground started to shake. The tiles on the floor cracked and shattered as they were suddenly pushed upwards. For those who were privy to such knowledge, the feel of a ward being warped and breaking was unmistakable. Whatever was coming up through the ground, it was no lesser demon.

"Maybe we should wait outside for the car..." Jared whispered lamely.

With a sound audible even to non-magicians, the ward on the floor of the foray finally shattered, never designed to hold back a demon of such strength. The creature that emerged was a mass of muscles, tends, limbs, mouths, claws...assuming anyone among the Protectors was a fan old horror stories, the demon was rather Lovecraftian, being extremely asymmetrical and rather unpleasant to look at. In fact, if it wasn't for the mouth that could comfortably fit a compact car, it would be hard to tell which was the front of the beast.

At the very least, the demon didn't seem able to speak, so instead of a haughty preamble, it simply roared, and slithered towards Pamelia. At the same time, the survivng demon birds in the school swarmed into the foray, focusing their attention on the Protectors and students near to Pamelia.


((OOC: See Discussion thread for details on the new demon.))