Speak of the Devil (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

"Uh, hello, Phantom," said Mark, bobbling briefly at her curt reply. "This is Edge, we worked together fighting those SHADOW guys? Something's happened to my friend James Prophet. I heard you might be able to help." It was a lucky guess. Wasn't everything?

[alderwitch]

"James Prophet? What - in specific - happened to him?" Mark had her full attention now, "I might be able to do something but I need details. What's going on?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Well, he..." Mark scratched his head, then had an idea. "Here, let me give the phone to my friend Wander. She'll explain everything." He handed the phone over to Erin with a little shrug, having realized he actually had very little he could say to Phantom. Generally he wasn't one to worry about not knowing what was going on, but this was fairly important. And Erin knew the score! Generally, anyway.

[Electra]

Erin took the phone, staring helplessly at it for a minute before putting it to her ear. "Um, hi. James, Hellion, he told me that you were helping him learn to use his dimension hopping powers. But now he's gone, he disappeared tonight to go and fight his family, and I don't know where he might have gone to find them. We were wondering if he ever talked with you about the best place to go to fight demons, or maybe about how to dimension hop to hell. And maybe if you knew how to get there, in case that's where he's gone and we have to go after him. But he's in big trouble, he's not going to be able to fight without help, and he's probably going to get himself killed."

[alderwitch]

"First off, he's too valuable to be killed. So, that's not something I'd put a lot of worry in." The voice on the other end of the phone echoed hollowly even through the phone's speakers. There was the sound of rustling behind her voice. "Of course I know about demons, but if you have to ask these sorts of questions, I'm not so sure I should send you off to battle them. He's no martyr, so I imagine he felt this was an inevitable show down that he wanted to take away from you lot. But I don't have time to sit on you all in addition to everything else I have to do, so I don't have too much of a choice. You might want to write this down."

[Electra]

"They might not kill him, but he could still end up just as dead," Erin replied hollowly. "He doesn't want anything to do with what they've got planned for him. Just a second." She went over to James' desk and rummaged through it till she found a pen and spiral notebook. "Okay, tell us what we need to do."

[alderwitch]

"What I'm trying to tell you, is that there are worse things to worry about than his death. Trust me, these are worse. Not just for him, but for everyone in Earth Prime." Phantom replied wearily. On the other end of the phone, she rubbed one gloved hand over her mask, "You're looking for demons. Judeo-Christian style demons, which means that he's hopefully picked a scrap of holy ground to fight them on. They'll be weakend, but so will he. You don't want to use anything like fire on them. They may or may not be immune. Depends on the kind of demon, but since you won't know an Enforcer from a Nemesis, just assume that fire's not a good plan with any of them."

Phantom didn't ask how young they were. She didn't want to know. It was bad enough to send children after the monsters in the night. But she had little choice and less time.

"The older the church, the better. Or a graveyard. Something where the ground would be consecrated to God - big G. Truthfully, the name doesn't matter as much as the intent, but old Christian churches and graveyards are a heck of a lot easier to find than a druidic circle of standing stones. If you believe in something, you might have luck brandishing holy symbols at it but those are iffy if they're not backed by actual faith. You're better off hitting them with a car, really. They'll be hardy, and fast. They'll throw hellfire. Some of them are more insidious and can turn your emotions against you, but you're more likely to fast the equivalent of demonic thugs."

She paused, trying to think of any last minute advice. "And if a very handsome man or woman shows up that none of you can touch but the shadows seem to lengthen and deepen around it. Just run. For godsakes, run. Because then you'll already have lost."

[Electra]

Erin bit her lip and jotted notes as quickly as she could while Phantom was talking, scrawling nearly illegibly across the paper to try and get everything down. "Alex, have Mark help you look for old churches in Freedom City," she said tersely, looking away from the phone for a moment. "James should hopefully be at the one Mark picks out." Putting the phone to her ear again, she told Phantom, "Okay, I think I've got it. Holy symbols and hitting them, no fire, and run away from gorgeous people with extra deep shadows. That should help." She hesitated just a moment. "If we get there and it's too late... what do we do? Is there anything we can do?"

[alderwitch]

"It's not going to be too late. It may just be too late tonight. This is a bad night to fight the forces of darkness. Belief gives them strength and no one believes more in monsters than they do on Halloween. The barrier between worlds is thinner than any other time of the year." Phantom sighed, "If you fail to save him. Note everything. What it looked like, what you fight. Memorize any inscriptions or the layout of any symbols or sigils. Hell's a big place but very structured. If you can find out which demon his father is or any names. Names always have power. Remember everything. They've stolen him to open the gateway between the worlds, I imagine, so any information we can get on their plans, we can use. Good luck."

[Electra]

"Thanks." Erin hung up the phone and tossed it back to Mark. "Phantom says that the likeliest place to find James is at an old church in the city, someplace that's likely to be holy ground," she reported to the group. "And she agrees that we're going to be facing down demons. Holy objects are good, if you have one and believe in God, otherwise anything except fire should work. And since fire is pretty much James' big power, he might be pretty screwed. I know it's dangerous, but if we go in a small group and as fast as we can, I think that's our best bet to help before it's too late. You guys in?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"I'm in," said Mark without hesitation. It didn't matter why there were demons after James; he was their friend; they were there to help him. "I don't know anything about old churches," he added quizzically a moment later. "I mean, outside of St. Mark's over in the West End, but that's just the old Episcopal place my uncle helped fix up. It's really nice, it's the second-oldest church in Freedom City."

[angrydurf]

Mike shook his head, "Like you have to ask. I mean whats the worst that can happen we get damned to an eternity in hell? Can't be worse than another session with Archer right?" He joked, gallows humor wasn't Mikes usual thing but it was the kind of thing James woudl have said so it seemed fitting.

[alderwitch]

"Already looking," Alex volunteered as she held her hands out to Mike to be carried. It certainly sounded like they didn't have a moment to lose and she couldn't walk and toss her senses out of her body at the same time. At least, not without careening off of the walls. "Hmm... Might be something there. There's odd blank spots. No activity, not even what should be. I'll see if I can get around it but we should head that direction."

[Electra]

Erin nodded. "Traffic will be messed up tonight, with it being Saturday and trick or treaters being out. We should go on foot, or by air." She looked over at Mark. "I know you're not crazy about it, but if you go piggyback with me, we'll get there a lot faster than trying to go in a car. We can grab our stuff and meet up on the roof in five minutes." She looked around once more and then, unless there were any objections, raced back to her room for her costume and bat. It didn't seem like a good night to wear flammable clothes.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Not a problem," Mark reassured her. He pulled his sweatshirt off over his head, revealing his uniform underneath it, kicking out of his bulky sweatpants to do the same thing. It was a good thing he'd thought to wear his costume today, he thought! "Meet you guys up there," he told Mike and Alex, holstering his grapple gun as he ran for the roof. They were going adventuring!

[angrydurf]

Mike glanced down at Alex with a small smile, "Back in half a sec." he said with a wink and there was quick stiring of air as he sped out of the room. A heartbeat later and he was back, clad in his newly constructed costume. The high collar and shoulders were in Claremont gold dropping a deep V to his belt of bronzed plates, his Young Freedom Beacon acting as buckle, the rest of the form fitting suit was in deep blue. He paired this with matching bracers and boots of burnished bronze, and a deep blue full length cape draped from his shoulders.

"You need to change?" He asked, last he heard she had been working on a way fo integrating a quickchage constume into her Communicator and Beacon but he didn't know if she had gotten it working or not.

[alderwitch]

Alex wrinkled her nose and pressed a few buttons on her belt buckle. It took its sweet time replacing the clothing but it did cover her in her uniform shortly. "Yeah, I just need to get the timing of that down to something more reasonable."

Alex had grown attached to her mother's old costume from her teenage years. The red leather leotard was surprisingly warm and flexible. The white, pleated skirt was a little cheerleader-like but Alex felt it was fun. The mask she pulled out and fitted over her features before she smiled at Mike. "Give me a lift? You're still faster than I am."

[Electra]

Erin met them on the roof, wearing her Claremont training uniform, her bat strapped to her hip and her beacon, like the rest of them, doubling as a belt buckle. She gave Mike a second look and a raised eyebrow for his new costume, but didn't take the time to comment. Gesturing for Mark to get on her back, she said tersely, "We'll go by rooftops, you go by air. If you see anything, keep in touch. Otherwise, let's try and meet up across the street from the church so we can get a look at what we're facing, and whether anyone's even there. Good?" she asked, pausing a moment before taking off.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark couldn't help but grin at the sight of Phalanx's costume, Devil take the seriousness of the moment. Heh! Good one! "Nice look, Phalanx." He climbed on Erin's back with the perfect trust of someone who'd never fallen, adding, "I'll watch your back on the way in. Stay low as you come in, so we don't get noticed by anyone looking up," he added to Erin.

[angrydurf]

Phalanx blushed slightly at his roomates comment, "Thanks." he said quietly.

He nodded agreement with Wanders assesment and pulled Psyche into his arms once more. She could fly on her own but needed to focus on breaking whatever was hiding James from them not to mention time was of the essance and he was much faster.

"We'll pass on word as soon as we see anything." he said as he took to the air.