Re: The Wretched Rite - Round Two - Inferno Alpha
06-21-2012, 09:19 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.
“Addy!”
The cry echoed through the water, piercing down from the surface to be lost in the dark depths of the river clutching at Adelaide’s toes. Though the usual silence had been dispersed by the furious yowls of the drowning souls of Hell, the word was as clear as though it had been shouted a foot from her head. Adelaide frowned and tightened her fists.
“Addy, where are you?”
The rusalka’s legs kicked through the water, her narrow feet trailing sprays of bubbles behind her. The shotgun had spooked her more than she’d liked to admit. She’d gone deep to avoid the bullets, deeper enough to feel the water pushing her down, but she hadn’t been shot at in a while and the fallen Pope had seemed intent on peppering her head with buckshot. Above her, the shore of Honorope’s private beach was little more than a bright, wavy line in the dark sky of her river.
“Do you think this is funny? Get the hell up here! ADDY!”
<font color="#77978A">
She growled and doubled her efforts, twisting through the water like an eel. Couldn’t the girl wait? The calls were growing louder as she swam, devolving into a string of creative descriptions of the rusalka and of what the tsote was going to do to her if she was dead. A panicked thought struck her as she clawed for the sky: maybe the girl was in trouble. Had the Pope called in help before he’d died? A… she had to think for a moment. A bishop? Did Popes in Hell still have bishops, like? Probably. She breached the surface slowly, scanning the beach for any men wearing preposterous hats and was immediately overtaken by a punch to the face.
The rusalka reeled back, too stunned to retaliate as a furious and waterlogged Alice rose up before her in a sodden heap of rage. “Where the fuck were you?” the girl howled, stabbing Adelaide’s chest with an angry finger. The rusalka winced though she barely felt it. “I thought you got shot, or- or drowned or something, fuck! You fucker! I thought you were dead! You stupid bitch!”
She made as if to shove Adelaide but the she gathered herself and dodged, leaving Alice to splash clumsily through the shallows. Her violet face was flushed nearly to crimson, bright with embarrassment. “You bitch,” she said, panting. She pointed a shaking finger at the bemused Adelaide. “Don’t you ever run off on me again. Not like that.” </font>
“Aw, girlie,” the rusalka said, “I’m touched.” Her dark eyes narrowed at the beach, searching the sand, but all she saw was a sobbing floozy desperately performing CPR on the late Pope Honorope. Her weeping echoed through the empty bungalow, over the crystal water slowly staining a murky red. “You know I was expectin’ a priest or something, or at least a coupla altar boys to show up. Maybe a watcha-call-em, a cardinal. Don’t these godly types go in packs?”
“You don’t get it!” The anger in Alice’s voice surprised her, and Adelaide turned back to her with a frown on her face. The tsote was standing breathlessly in the water, soaked to her hips in brine with the gun forgotten in her right hand. She moved closer, her expression furious. “I thought he shot you, that you... I- I thought I was gonna be alone!”
Slowly, Adelaide’s frown melted away. She reached out and took the tsote’s hands in hers, ignoring the resulting flinch. “Look, Alex…”
“Alice.”
“Alice, right. You know how much of a pain in the ass it is t’drag someone through that water and keep ‘em alive? S’like dragging a bag of concrete around for an hour and not lettin’ it touch the ground. That’s you. You’re a sack of concrete.” The tsote’s eyes narrowed and Adelaide hurriedly continued, “An’ I wouldn’t just keep doin’ that if I was gonna leave you somewhere. Honest. I could save myself a lotta trouble. We’re like a team, see?”
She laid a hand gently on Alice’s cheek and drew her close, resting her forehead against the other girl’s. Alice was the taller of the two by at least three inches and the rusalka had to cling to her in order to reach. “I’ll stick with you,” she said, brushing a strand of hair away from the tsote’s face, “I promise. For at least a little while, while I can. Scout’s honor.”
Alice gave a halfhearted smile and pushed her away, though not with enough force to make it convincing. “You’re getting’ sloppy on me.”
“Oh,” Adelaide said, offended. “An’ who exactly was the one gettin’ all weepy when I was gone for a couple of seconds?”
“I thought you were dead!”
“S’gonna take more than a few bullets to do that,” the rusalka scoffed, “I been dead for years, ain’t anything a little lead’s gonna change.”
The clouds roared with a cacophony of thunder, drowning out Alice’s reply. A sudden breeze began to roll in from over the ocean, foul and reeking of brimstone and sulfur and sharp as a knife, choking the air with its reek. The water around them began to boil sluggishly as a heartrending wail resounding over the waves and the pair looked up to see that the once-clear skies had turned iron grey, bleeding into an ominous red at the horizon. With a mighty boom a fiery blossom erupted where the sun had once been, plunging the beach into ruddy night, then the light dimmed and all at once an angel appeared before them.
It was nearly nine feet tall and clad in Grecian robes of red and black, over which a golden breastplate bearing the head of skeletal goat was somewhat nebulously attached. A black spear as thick around as Adelaide’s arm was clutched firmly in the angel’s right hand, the other bent into the gesture of the devil’s horns. Two huge wings swept out from behind the angel’s back; if either of the girls had known anything about the mechanics of feathered flight they would have seen that its pinions had been neatly clipped, but as they didn’t the wings merely seemed awkwardly stubby. With an imperious gaze, the angel gazed over the beach with glowing eyes and said, “Too much?”
Alice looked at Adelaide, who rolled her eyes. “Little bit.”
“Ah,” the angel said sadly, “I thought so.” It waved a slender hand; abruptly the sky flickered and faded back to peaceful cerulean, the storm clouds dissipating into placid little wisps. The scent of brimstone abated in place of a sickly-sweet floral perfume and the sound of artificial gulls once more began piping out from somewhere behind the bungalow. “Better?”
Alice squinted at the angel. Lacking any knowledge of Judeo-Christian imagery, she was only aware that all of this seemed extremely tacky. “Lucy?”
The angel smiled wearily. “Good, I hoped someone would get it. It’s, uh, not my preferred form,” it said sheepishly. “I just thought this might be more recognizable.”
“Are you the devil?” Adelaide said suspiciously.
An awkward moment passed as the angel stared at her. Then it coughed. “Well, anyway, as I’m in charge now I would just like to officially thank you two ladies for ending the reign of the good Pope Honorope and opening the gates of Hell, as it were. My demons are in the process of removing all those terrible people as we speak.” It looked thoughtful. “Though I don’t know where they’ll go now, exactly. Perhaps Limbo, though all the shuttles are down…”
“Look, Lucy,” Adelaide said. “We ‘preciate your thanks and all but we’d like to get out of here. Nothin’ personal. You got a lovely Hell goin’ on here, really.”
“Mm, yes. Unfortunately,” the angel sighed, “The damned souls are not the only entities trapped here. When this sphere was created it was designed to be a self-contained system, accessed only by the [place] and the Heaven and Limbo shuttles. I have nowhere else to send you. My network does not extend past the outer circles. For all I know there exists nothing but a void beyond.”
“Alright,” she said, “Then can y’kill someone for us?”
“Certainly not!” Lucy said, flapping its wings in distress. “Do I look like a savage to you? The answer to that question is yes, but the truth remains the same! I am not a- a murderer!” It shuddered.
“Aw, Lucy, she wasn’t calling you a murderer,” Alice said soothingly. She gave Adelaide a glare, who returned it with a upraised middle finger. “She’s just a bit blunt- ow! You bitch!”
“Please, no violence,” the angel said, “I’ve had quite enough of that!”
Adelaide let go of Alice’s hair with a mumbled shouldn’ta-saved-your-ass-in-the-first-place and snapped, “Can’t y’do anything for us, then?”
“I can marry the two of you.”
“What?”
“I, er, didn’t want to bring it up, it seemed rude,” Lucy said gently, “But the way you two have been… carrying on… it’s obvious that your relationship is- well, it’s not proper, is it?” It folded its wings in a way that suggested it was trying to hide behind them. “It would be much more decent if you would sanctify it officially.”
“There are,” Adelaide said, “A [/i]lotta[/i] contradictions in what you just said.”
“I just wish you wish consider it, at least,” Lucy said earnestly. “And this way it would be much easier for me to send you to Paradiso Alpha. The Heavenly Sphere does not look fondly on such, er… passion-based commitments.”
“Fine,” Alice said. “Do it.”
“Hold on, girlie,” Adelaide said, turning to her with her hands on her bare hips. “You got some serious distance issue if y’think this is th’right time for this. I never even met your parents! D’you even know my ring size? Chrissake, we don’ even have a caterer!”
“It won’t take that long,” Lucy said encouragingly. “Ironically, I was programmed as a Justice of the Peace.”
Adelaide sighed. “Fine, get it over with. Don’t even have a fuckin’ dress,” she muttered.
The angel paused. “That is a concern. Perhaps-”
From over the sea came a long, slow note, somewhere between a violin and a foghorn. [/color]
“Thought you were done with theatrics,” Adelaide said, spitting seawater. She rested her elbow on Alice’s head.
“That…” Lucy wobbled unsteadily, searching blindly behind it for support. It found none. “That was not of my doing.” The angel’s voice was little more than a whisper. It had gone as pale as ivory, its beautiful face frozen in a rictus of terror. “He is coming.”
The girls exchanged a look. “Who?”
Slowly, Lucy turned to face them, swallowing visibly. It reached down and plucked it spear from the waves, planting it firmly in the sand. “Who else? The Lord of Hosts, the Lion of Light, He of Infinite Mercy. He.”
“Sorry?”
Lucy’s eyes were fixed on the sun. Its lips did not seem to move as it spoke. “The Godbot.”
“Addy!”
The cry echoed through the water, piercing down from the surface to be lost in the dark depths of the river clutching at Adelaide’s toes. Though the usual silence had been dispersed by the furious yowls of the drowning souls of Hell, the word was as clear as though it had been shouted a foot from her head. Adelaide frowned and tightened her fists.
“Addy, where are you?”
The rusalka’s legs kicked through the water, her narrow feet trailing sprays of bubbles behind her. The shotgun had spooked her more than she’d liked to admit. She’d gone deep to avoid the bullets, deeper enough to feel the water pushing her down, but she hadn’t been shot at in a while and the fallen Pope had seemed intent on peppering her head with buckshot. Above her, the shore of Honorope’s private beach was little more than a bright, wavy line in the dark sky of her river.
“Do you think this is funny? Get the hell up here! ADDY!”
<font color="#77978A">
She growled and doubled her efforts, twisting through the water like an eel. Couldn’t the girl wait? The calls were growing louder as she swam, devolving into a string of creative descriptions of the rusalka and of what the tsote was going to do to her if she was dead. A panicked thought struck her as she clawed for the sky: maybe the girl was in trouble. Had the Pope called in help before he’d died? A… she had to think for a moment. A bishop? Did Popes in Hell still have bishops, like? Probably. She breached the surface slowly, scanning the beach for any men wearing preposterous hats and was immediately overtaken by a punch to the face.
The rusalka reeled back, too stunned to retaliate as a furious and waterlogged Alice rose up before her in a sodden heap of rage. “Where the fuck were you?” the girl howled, stabbing Adelaide’s chest with an angry finger. The rusalka winced though she barely felt it. “I thought you got shot, or- or drowned or something, fuck! You fucker! I thought you were dead! You stupid bitch!”
She made as if to shove Adelaide but the she gathered herself and dodged, leaving Alice to splash clumsily through the shallows. Her violet face was flushed nearly to crimson, bright with embarrassment. “You bitch,” she said, panting. She pointed a shaking finger at the bemused Adelaide. “Don’t you ever run off on me again. Not like that.” </font>
“Aw, girlie,” the rusalka said, “I’m touched.” Her dark eyes narrowed at the beach, searching the sand, but all she saw was a sobbing floozy desperately performing CPR on the late Pope Honorope. Her weeping echoed through the empty bungalow, over the crystal water slowly staining a murky red. “You know I was expectin’ a priest or something, or at least a coupla altar boys to show up. Maybe a watcha-call-em, a cardinal. Don’t these godly types go in packs?”
“You don’t get it!” The anger in Alice’s voice surprised her, and Adelaide turned back to her with a frown on her face. The tsote was standing breathlessly in the water, soaked to her hips in brine with the gun forgotten in her right hand. She moved closer, her expression furious. “I thought he shot you, that you... I- I thought I was gonna be alone!”
Slowly, Adelaide’s frown melted away. She reached out and took the tsote’s hands in hers, ignoring the resulting flinch. “Look, Alex…”
“Alice.”
“Alice, right. You know how much of a pain in the ass it is t’drag someone through that water and keep ‘em alive? S’like dragging a bag of concrete around for an hour and not lettin’ it touch the ground. That’s you. You’re a sack of concrete.” The tsote’s eyes narrowed and Adelaide hurriedly continued, “An’ I wouldn’t just keep doin’ that if I was gonna leave you somewhere. Honest. I could save myself a lotta trouble. We’re like a team, see?”
She laid a hand gently on Alice’s cheek and drew her close, resting her forehead against the other girl’s. Alice was the taller of the two by at least three inches and the rusalka had to cling to her in order to reach. “I’ll stick with you,” she said, brushing a strand of hair away from the tsote’s face, “I promise. For at least a little while, while I can. Scout’s honor.”
Alice gave a halfhearted smile and pushed her away, though not with enough force to make it convincing. “You’re getting’ sloppy on me.”
“Oh,” Adelaide said, offended. “An’ who exactly was the one gettin’ all weepy when I was gone for a couple of seconds?”
“I thought you were dead!”
“S’gonna take more than a few bullets to do that,” the rusalka scoffed, “I been dead for years, ain’t anything a little lead’s gonna change.”
The clouds roared with a cacophony of thunder, drowning out Alice’s reply. A sudden breeze began to roll in from over the ocean, foul and reeking of brimstone and sulfur and sharp as a knife, choking the air with its reek. The water around them began to boil sluggishly as a heartrending wail resounding over the waves and the pair looked up to see that the once-clear skies had turned iron grey, bleeding into an ominous red at the horizon. With a mighty boom a fiery blossom erupted where the sun had once been, plunging the beach into ruddy night, then the light dimmed and all at once an angel appeared before them.
It was nearly nine feet tall and clad in Grecian robes of red and black, over which a golden breastplate bearing the head of skeletal goat was somewhat nebulously attached. A black spear as thick around as Adelaide’s arm was clutched firmly in the angel’s right hand, the other bent into the gesture of the devil’s horns. Two huge wings swept out from behind the angel’s back; if either of the girls had known anything about the mechanics of feathered flight they would have seen that its pinions had been neatly clipped, but as they didn’t the wings merely seemed awkwardly stubby. With an imperious gaze, the angel gazed over the beach with glowing eyes and said, “Too much?”
Alice looked at Adelaide, who rolled her eyes. “Little bit.”
“Ah,” the angel said sadly, “I thought so.” It waved a slender hand; abruptly the sky flickered and faded back to peaceful cerulean, the storm clouds dissipating into placid little wisps. The scent of brimstone abated in place of a sickly-sweet floral perfume and the sound of artificial gulls once more began piping out from somewhere behind the bungalow. “Better?”
Alice squinted at the angel. Lacking any knowledge of Judeo-Christian imagery, she was only aware that all of this seemed extremely tacky. “Lucy?”
The angel smiled wearily. “Good, I hoped someone would get it. It’s, uh, not my preferred form,” it said sheepishly. “I just thought this might be more recognizable.”
“Are you the devil?” Adelaide said suspiciously.
An awkward moment passed as the angel stared at her. Then it coughed. “Well, anyway, as I’m in charge now I would just like to officially thank you two ladies for ending the reign of the good Pope Honorope and opening the gates of Hell, as it were. My demons are in the process of removing all those terrible people as we speak.” It looked thoughtful. “Though I don’t know where they’ll go now, exactly. Perhaps Limbo, though all the shuttles are down…”
“Look, Lucy,” Adelaide said. “We ‘preciate your thanks and all but we’d like to get out of here. Nothin’ personal. You got a lovely Hell goin’ on here, really.”
“Mm, yes. Unfortunately,” the angel sighed, “The damned souls are not the only entities trapped here. When this sphere was created it was designed to be a self-contained system, accessed only by the [place] and the Heaven and Limbo shuttles. I have nowhere else to send you. My network does not extend past the outer circles. For all I know there exists nothing but a void beyond.”
“Alright,” she said, “Then can y’kill someone for us?”
“Certainly not!” Lucy said, flapping its wings in distress. “Do I look like a savage to you? The answer to that question is yes, but the truth remains the same! I am not a- a murderer!” It shuddered.
“Aw, Lucy, she wasn’t calling you a murderer,” Alice said soothingly. She gave Adelaide a glare, who returned it with a upraised middle finger. “She’s just a bit blunt- ow! You bitch!”
“Please, no violence,” the angel said, “I’ve had quite enough of that!”
Adelaide let go of Alice’s hair with a mumbled shouldn’ta-saved-your-ass-in-the-first-place and snapped, “Can’t y’do anything for us, then?”
“I can marry the two of you.”
“What?”
“I, er, didn’t want to bring it up, it seemed rude,” Lucy said gently, “But the way you two have been… carrying on… it’s obvious that your relationship is- well, it’s not proper, is it?” It folded its wings in a way that suggested it was trying to hide behind them. “It would be much more decent if you would sanctify it officially.”
“There are,” Adelaide said, “A [/i]lotta[/i] contradictions in what you just said.”
“I just wish you wish consider it, at least,” Lucy said earnestly. “And this way it would be much easier for me to send you to Paradiso Alpha. The Heavenly Sphere does not look fondly on such, er… passion-based commitments.”
“Fine,” Alice said. “Do it.”
“Hold on, girlie,” Adelaide said, turning to her with her hands on her bare hips. “You got some serious distance issue if y’think this is th’right time for this. I never even met your parents! D’you even know my ring size? Chrissake, we don’ even have a caterer!”
“It won’t take that long,” Lucy said encouragingly. “Ironically, I was programmed as a Justice of the Peace.”
Adelaide sighed. “Fine, get it over with. Don’t even have a fuckin’ dress,” she muttered.
The angel paused. “That is a concern. Perhaps-”
From over the sea came a long, slow note, somewhere between a violin and a foghorn. [/color]
“Thought you were done with theatrics,” Adelaide said, spitting seawater. She rested her elbow on Alice’s head.
“That…” Lucy wobbled unsteadily, searching blindly behind it for support. It found none. “That was not of my doing.” The angel’s voice was little more than a whisper. It had gone as pale as ivory, its beautiful face frozen in a rictus of terror. “He is coming.”
The girls exchanged a look. “Who?”
Slowly, Lucy turned to face them, swallowing visibly. It reached down and plucked it spear from the waves, planting it firmly in the sand. “Who else? The Lord of Hosts, the Lion of Light, He of Infinite Mercy. He.”
“Sorry?”
Lucy’s eyes were fixed on the sun. Its lips did not seem to move as it spoke. “The Godbot.”