Order of the Scroll [PLOT!]

[Sparda]

Sparda turned his eyes upon the white mist that floated from the woman's scythe and took form. At first he squinted, confused... but then her features sharpened.

The demon's heart sank into his stomach like a lead weight.

"...Eva...?"

She wandered as if she couldn't see him, spoke as if she had not heard him call her name, but the anguish on her face and in her voice as she looked around for the saviour who did not come snapped his heartstrings clean in half. The colour drained from his face as the image of his departed wife faded from sight and the woman and boy taunted him further...

His grip on Revelation's hilt tightened until the steel looked ready to buckle in his hand, and he fixed first Castiel with a stare so dark it might've ripped the very soul out of a mortal.

"If my sons are a tenth as powerful as I have become, you petulant little child," he snarled, striding towards his new enemies, "they'll throw you around like a ragdoll before they finally get round to snuffing out your miserable little mockery of life. But I think I'll save them the trouble, because you and your mistress have signed your death warrants in blood for this sacrilege..."

Almost in the same instant the word blood left his lips, the whole courtyard - then the whole city - quaked beneath a seismic shock triggered by the demon's seething rage. Even gravity felt like it had strengthened hundredfold, imposing a crushing physical force upon the three others in the room that would not relent however they attempted to loosen its life-choking grip. The Dark Knight walked unhindered, a barely bridled fury in his eyes unlike any that had possessed him before.

"You presume to take her from me again?!" the demon suddenly roared, raising Revelation above his head. From the jet blade surged forth a torrent of violet flames that spiraled upwards, raw demonic power taking the form of a gigantic blade.

"I INVITE YOU VERMIN TO TRY!!

The enraged demon brought the sword down in a mighty swing...

Before his unrestrained power, half the city would be erased.

[Ira]

Tasteless appetizer? Looked far from it considering the fact that there were so many bodies. She twirled the scroll in her hand while she watched the three. Oh, she was good. This Lilith person? She was good.

"Bravo," Ira commented giving a nod of her head. Souls of late loved ones was always a decent way to get under the skin of most people. But could she handle the wrath of some people? And then the thing talking about devouring the soul. Pretty good little dun moch user. But again, could they handle the anger one threw at them? Such an empowering emotion...

"Glowy thing?" She asked raising a brow. Was it talking about her lightsaber? And if so, how did it know about them? They weren't on but strapped at the small of her back, yes. But still, she was fairly certain she had not drawn them around these people. Bah, like them knowing she had a light saber was anything new though. She shrugged her shoulders and crossed her arms, debating on what to do. Nothing really in it for her either way.

"And so what's the occasion for the anger inducing display of souls? A bunch of duplicate scrolls? Death and fighting-" Ira fell silent as she realized she felt something which seemed faintly familiar. Something that made her a bit giddy really. It felt like as if someone had just let their dark force aura out and roam free like she used to do. Heavy and suffocating. Such a thrill. Then again, she was a bit of a masochist when it came to such things. Being around someone who could produce such a feeling was lovely, thrilling, and very much enjoyable despite it meant them generally being not too happy of a person at the moment when such a feeling was unleashed.

Ira sighed though and shook her head. Perhaps sighing was not too good of a thing to have done considering how heavy the air felt to become. Ira dropped the scroll she held when she noted the flames from his weapon. Was he really just going to unleash like that? Be blinded by it? Controlled by it?

"Pathetic," she muttered under her breath. Yes, be empowered by it. But don't let it control you in such a manner. They taught nobody properly these days, did they?

She fought to take in a deep breath and focused as he brought his weapon down. The energy which rushed forth was immense, but that was something she was used to. People attempting overwhelm her with force powers when all she wanted to do was cut through them. So she had to learn how to avoid being hit with raw energies; shifting it away from her generally.

Ira rolled her hands at her side, this place was rich in the dark side due to the deaths, their deaths alone would be plenty to empower her to stop this. With the energy near her as she rolled her hands, it seemed to roll backwards as if it was a wave which crashed against a wall. It rolled over and continued back towards Sparda when Ira extended her fingers forward.

It had surprisingly taken a good deal from her in order to shift it back towards him. Without the extra weight which seemed to be place on her, she felt as if she may have slid backwards while attempting to force the direction to change. Had it not been for the deaths causing this area to become dark side enriched, she may have been struggling right now to even stand. But.

She still was standing.

"Impressive, but a bit reckless. Could be refined though I suppose."

[Order of the Scroll]

After Sparda's attack decimated half of the city, it would seem there was nothing left of the troublesome duo and the fight had been won. Smoke cloaked the sky, concealing the moon and stars that had once been so clear. Fires burned down remaining homes, vehicles exploded; but that wasn't the worst of the damage.

Pained screams of the dying broke the silence.

The part of the city Sparda had chosen to eliminate was inhabited by people and the remaining survivors made their agony known to all. Blood replaced the stench of tar and gasoline that had been disturbed by the attack--it was overpowering. From the fires, shimmering lights rushed to the smoke in the clouds and disappeared, becoming swallowed by the darkness. The Dark Knight was intelligent enough to know what was causing this anomaly.

In a burst of overwhelming energy, the smoke cleared out in the wake of a sonic boom that erupted from Lilith's scythe. Her weapon had been further empowered by the souls it had devoured; and in her other arm was Castiel. The "child" was safe and was released to levitate beside her--both hands will be needed.

"Amusing. The other Spardas I met reacted the same way! Seems all of you have a short fuse over this Eva."

The cloak she wore had been damaged from the wave of attack and the fire raced up the flammable cloth. Lilith rolled her shoulders and it fell off her body, burning to ash before it could reach the ground. It's a shame she had to reveal what she truly looked like to an opponent so early in the battle but there was no other option.

Charcoal eyes stared down Sparda and from her back, three large sets of blackened wings spilled out and flared to keep her aloft. The bones that made the overall frame jutted out at the sides and glistened in the moonlight. Almost like the cherry on top, her aura seeped out in massive waves that couldn't have possibly belonged to someone trapped in a mortal body.

"I was among the first and I will be with the last. From the Garden of Eden, I was born to be Adam's first wife. I refused to be subservient, became the lover of an angel of death and took his power from him while he slept." Lilith raised her scythe high and the metal started to glow, "I am now death, Dark Knight. Death has called for the human souls to begin the final days of judgement!" A flash emitted and the moon dimmed only to reignite in a blood-red shade, "Do you really think you can stop the inevitable?"

[mabs]

Emile felt a pang of fear rip through him as Sparda flipped out and attacked - the wave looked as if it would crush them all with its power. He buried his face into Lil's back, arms clinging to her as if he'd get sucked away by the blast-

But she saved him. Again.

The blast ripped around them, past them, and tore the city to rubble. Such power...

As he listened, half of the city died and it was glorious. He grinned, only to realize he was floating.

"Weee!" He giggled, glancing to Lilith as she introduced herself properly and the thing he'd been waiting for happened - her aura leaked out, unable to be fully contained.

Now, unlike most, Lilith's Aura was the very essence of death, the thing Emile fed on. He gasped quietly as he shuddered, the energy rolling through his body. He wanted more, he NEEDED more. It strengthened him, every muscle and nerve coiling and tensing.

"Impressive, Sparda." He admitted, but the voice was adult and then some. He was powerful now, and that just kept growing so long as he was near Lilith. "You just killed thousands and failed to kill those you aimed for. It takes real skill to do that, trust me."

He licked his lips as he seemed to almost grow; under his skin, muscles bulked and writhed, adapting to the energy that was being pumped into them. If he wasn't a match for Sparda, he might be soon.

"Oh, a little note on that." He said, smiling darkly, dangerously. "My nails excrete Neurotoxin. Funny thing about that is it reacts to any species. Its just how I work. So... remember when you said your Sons would toss me around like a ragdoll? Perhaps not yours, but it was ever so much fun to watch them both ROT from the inside out. They where begging for you, you know. Then I ate them as the final light left their eyes."

[Ayen]

A powerful demonic charge shot fired off from the dual barrel shotgun towards the side of Castiel. Just when you thought it was safe to monologue. The shotgun that has done the deed was a perfectly crafted replica of the Coyote-A branded, Coyote Ugly. Where did the shot come from? The silver haired woman clad in purple and black as she stepped out of a dimensional rift that has silently opened during all the commotion from Utopia and closed the second she stepped out. She was lucky as she missed half the city being erased just a few moments ago.

The Demon Assassin kept the Coyote Ugly held up in her left hand as she looked around the room. From Cas to Lilith, to Sparda to Ira. She expected the boy to lash out any minute now so she stayed alert even while her eyes looked to other people. Finally her gaze went up to Lilith wielding that scythe as the Coyote Ugly barrels were now set on her. A cold mask shielded the woman’s expression as her gloved finger came close to pulling back on the trigger.

“Maricul sends her regards.”

The Demon Assassin squeezed the trigger and fired.

[Sparda]

The wave of flames that roared from Sparda's blade as it struck the ground surged forth in a roughly forty-degree spread, ripping unstoppably through the structures in its path like a great corrosive flood that did not merely wash away the unfortunate souls before it, but burned them off the face of the planet. If the demon would have felt any remorse for the consequences of his mindless display of power, it had been driven to the back of his mind by his rage before it could even occur to him.

The flames roared on, leaving a blackened, triangular scar in the landscape... but Lilith and the boy had stubbornly survived, and the newcomer even had the audacity to attempt to turn the Dark Knight's fury back upon him. The wall of flames she managed to redirect met only a whirling barrier of smoke into which it disappeared - then howled back into life right above her from the other end of Sparda's portal, threatening to crash down upon her position. The most obvious escape would be backwards, out from beneath the portals and away from the ensuing madness.

In the face of their incessant mocking, the demon merely scowled darkly. The first eruption of such fury was always the largest; then his anger would be contained and focused into this quiet yet nearly omnicidal wrath.

"Inevitable?" the demon barked in retort. "You speak as if nothing can impede you, harlot, and that hubris is your next mistake...."

Sparda didn't even wait for the brat beside her to finish taunting him before crossing the distance between them with such celerity as to appear as if he hadn't even moved. He stood airborne beside the boy, Revelation raised, its blade once again wreathed in the flames of his vengeance.

"You, you insolent little brat, have already made your last."

He swung the weapon down to his side and unleashed a torrent of hellfire upon the cloaked child. If the cold grasp of the blade didn't take him, the infernal blaze that erupted from it would.

[Ira]

"Son of a -" Darth Ira dove forward when she heard the energy returning once again though from above. It was too quick to try to redirect it once again. Her palms hit the ground as she dove forward and she pushed off her hands to flip up onto her feet, though now closer to the others. But that failed to even cross her mind as did the sound of another gun shot.

Screaming which seemed to echo forever rang clear in her head. She shuddered once again and let out a quiet growl as the sensation of so many lives lost so suddenly struck her once again. Her hunger seemed to be calmed but her heart still raced. It was so...empowering. So thrilling. The screams ringing, the sound of her heart beat increasing, the smell of death as a whole. The fear, sorrow, anguish from the city. She felt so energized.

Her attention fell only to the dramatic shift of energies, not the speech of being death, not the fight that Sparda continued, not the gun shot. Just the lovely intoxicating feeling of a wound being left. Ira opened her eyes finally.

"You realize, Sparda, I'm assuming that's your name, that you're just giving the expected and desired reactions? You've played wonderfully into their hands." Darth Ira turned her eyes onto the other person who had entered finally, her eyes half open as she studied the woman. Another one. Hm.

She reached behind her back and pulled her saber hilts from their place at the small of her back. She wanted to join in with such a wound existing, wanted to use the raw dark side energies forming from the deaths. But the fact of the matter was, she knew not the situation, knew not who to join, nor did she know what all these people were capable of. Situations involving ancient rituals with flimsiplast or paper were usually indications of wanting it for herself. Some untold power lying hidden in writing with some riddle stuff or something like that was usually involved. Something she would want to only be in her hands. But the fact that she knew not what they were all capable of stopped her, made her hesitant.

Ira backed away slowly. Let them fight it out, observe them. Let them weaken each other, then lash out. Or...Turn attentions away from them to the scrolls? Or try to balance both? "Tch."

Ira put one saber hilt back in its place at the small of her back while keeping one in hand still as she backed away and set to look at some of the scrolls which remained.

[mabs]

It wasn't a very pleasant experience having half of your skull blown off with a shotgun, but at the very least the force knocked him away from Spardas attack. He fell and slammed hard into the ground, blood and brain leaking from the gaping wound. Everything from just under his left eye socket to his scalp was simply gone.

For several long seconds he appeared dead - but then his remaining eye moved, locking on Sparda and... female Sparda. That was the only way his mind could process it - it was kinda creepy really...

He began to laugh softly as he sat up, before getting to his feet he tutted. Aside from a little slur in his voice, he was undamaged - minus missing half of his head.

"Ow." He grunted, sighing slightly as he stared at Sparda for several long seconds. "Fact number two. Its very hard to kill me. Actually, you can't. Not in a way way i'd let you find out." He said in a sing-song tone.

Blood and brain matter was pouring down one side of his face like a river, but it didn't seem to impede him. Instead, without seemingly a care in the world, he walked over to one of the guns that had fallen from the lifeless hands of one of the cultists - a pistol, he didn't know what type - and it was huge in his hands. Training kicked in and he spun on his heel, raised it, and promptly fired the entire clip into the female Sparda's face.

Lucky Lilith had outfitted the guns with silver rounds by standard, wasn't it? With the barrel smoking, he tossed it aside and grinned up at the pair.

"And you ruined my favorite shirt, Bitch." He snorted, his tone clearly adult again.

[Ayen]

The Demon Assassin observed how her last attack affected the kid. At least she knew his body wasn’t indestructible. She wondered if he could run around with the rest of his head blown off. The Demon Assassin didn’t pay any attention to Sparda nor would she be concerned with the Togruta unless she decided to attack her. Eva’s eyes fell back on the child once he picked up a gun and began to fire. The Demon Assassin evaded the incoming bullets with a Trickster Dash and cut the gap between herself and the kid in no time flat as she brought the Coyote Ugly up to the throat of the child and delivered a Gun Stinger; ferociously ramming the shotgun into his throat and firing off a concentrated burst of buckshot.

His favorite shirt would become the least of his worries.

[Order of the Scroll]

"My dear, dear Sparda. Do you not see?" Lilith descended from the sky and held the scythe with both hands. Castiel will be fine up there as long as he keeps himself out of trouble but that always seemed to find him no matter the location. The Fallen definitely had motherly instincts towards the boy but she knew what he was capable of--bullets won't keep him down for long, especially with how much of her aura he had absorbed.

It was concerning to see him so badly damaged and having to take yet more from the female Sparda but she had more pressing matters to attend to. But then she took note of the gun about to be "hammered" into his throat! The Fallen pointed her Scythe in the direciton of the fight and the staff emitted a faint pulse. Castiel's body collapsed into a pile of ash and drifted beside Lilith. From the feet up, his body was reformed and healed from the earlier injuries. Why must this child distract her when she was about to deliver a necessary speech?

Be more careful.

"The universe is under chaos from the imbalance that has descended in all worlds. Barriers are down, species have crossed over and the humans have done the most traveling in that aspect." Beside Lilith, in her right hand, a pair of scales appeared. Instead of one side reigning over the other, it was constantly teeter-tottering and appeared to be on the verge of shattering from the stress.

"The time of the apocalypse is at hand for those made in the image of God. However..." Lilith curled her fingers down to her palm and the scales vanished. "...He refuses to open the scrolls, pour out His wrath from the bowls and sound the trumpets. Because of all that's happened, I am able to gain each of these artifacts through rituals and start what he should have finished centuries ago!"

Lilith hated following rules, despised the human race and finally found a reason to dispose of them. If their Father won't do it, then she'll gladly do the honors to obtain her vengeance. A Fallen could not fight their Creator but His creation, on the other hand...

"You are fighting something etched in stone. Whether you like it or not, it's going to happen. Take your allies and go, warn the human race of their oncoming deaths. Perhaps you could make this easier for me and give them a quick death--I won't be that merciful."

The smug attitude she had earlier was long gone, replaced with the anger she had been harboring for thousands of years. Nothing will stop her from this goal. No one!

[mabs]

It wasn't a very nice feeling to be turned to Ash.

Actually, compared to being shot in the head, it made his skin crawl. The Shotgun's shell exploded against the far wall and Emile appeared beside Lilith once more, his body healing as it came back together. It was odd to watch, thats for certain.

But, unlike if he'd have healed naturally, it made him itch like hell and it took all of his willpower to just let the magic do what it had to do. He reached up and touched his skull, kinda relieved he had the missing half back. He let out a quiet sigh before he nodded softly at Lilith's mental words.

I will. He smiled softly, glancing over to the other two. He could do so much more than they knew, and he'd find a way to prove it. In the mean time he simply floated beside Lilith, head resting on her side comfortably for them both. As he did so, he was silently absorbing her aura even still. Almost without realising a small flicker of black lightning cut between his left hand.

[Sparda]

Almost as soon as he had appeared, the Dark Knight vanished from above Castiel. The torrent of flames unleashed from his sword crashed down against the flagstones below, reducing the stone in its direct path to nothing but a mass of molten, glass-like slag.

In its wake, the demon reappeared, standing upon a platform of hardlight energy above the glassed stone. Revelation hefted at his side, he turned his gaze up at Lilith as she challenged him with a monologue of her motives.

A monologue that sounded all too familiar...

"So you take issue with the presence of people not of this universe," he muttered in response, "and you believe it's your place to pass judgement upon them... Where have I heard this before?!"

Once again, the Dark Knight's aura flared up with his temper, shaking the city with another great tremor. "Not a week ago, I did battle with an entity that claimed to be sent by the gods to exterminate those who had passed through this dimensional rift! Thousands of innocent people, thrown there by no fault of their own, would've been put to his sword if we hadn't stopped him!"

The demon raised his sword, staring down the blade at Lilith, utter contempt blazing in his eyes. "And if the Arashi couldn't succeed with his all but limitless power, you certainly won't! You say your duty is written in stone, angel filth - I say even stone can be ground down and its decrees erased!"

In the blackened sky above the courtyard glimmered a mass of tiny purple lights, as if a gathering of violet stars had glinted into life. A few seconds would pass before it became clear that they were not stars, but a colossal storm of spears constructed of the Dark Knight's demonic power. Numbering perhaps in the hundreds, they would rain down upon the whole courtyard and eviscerate its occupants as if hurled into the fray by some enormous army of phantoms.

[Ayen]

The boy becoming ash happened so quickly that at first The Demon Assassin thought it was by her hand that the boy fell. That was not so. Eva turned her head to see the boy reemerge by the power of his mother as she now took a few steps forward while still staying a fair distance away from the enemy. Not making the mistake of underestimating them, or exhausting her resources early in this fight. As the monologues and exchange of motives were made clear Eva eyes turned red as Coyote Ugly started to charge up with more of her demonic power.

“Don’t talk.”

She raised the shotgun, the barrels now aimed at the woman.

“Just die.”

The Demon Assassin pulled back on the trigger and released the charge shot for the woman. That was when the spears came raining down against the courtyard looking to take down any that dared step in their way. Now even if the woman and/or child made a move against her they would still have to worry about the attack from the other person clad in violet. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Eva moved accordingly to stay out of the falling spears trajectory as her free hand brushed over the hilt of the Mirror Edge.

[Order of the Scroll]

"Pathetic."

Lilith's wings spread out and wrapped herself, along with Castiel, within them. The spears and bullets all came in unison to make their mark only to ricochet off what appeared to be a fragile extremity. When the "storm" of projectiles ceased, feathers shed off and drifted from the sky--the constant damage she had taken from the two demons had revealed the leathery surface below the down.

"Two Spardas? I haven't found a female before but..." Lilith's nose wrinkled at Eva, almost in disgust, "Fancy that. You had to be born of his DNA to even exist. You're not even an original copy." The Fallen snorted at the freak of nature and decided it was best to start what should have been finished before this blasted fight.

Lilith never was a fan of fighting.

From the sleeves of her gown, she pulled out a scroll and held it up triumphantly for all of them to see. "You really thought I'd let the original be amongst the copies?" In her other hand, a blob of blood rose from her flesh and spiraled from its confinements, "And you also thought that I'd need a ceremonial knife to open this scroll? Young ones these days just don't seem to understand that the older ones know how to play the games."

The blood sank back into her palm and she grasped the scroll's seal, "All it took was the spilling of pure, innocent blood to make the opening of this possible! I was just curious as to what you were capable of." Lilith's smile faded to that of a very disappointed frown, "And I'm not impressed."

The seal was ripped, a green-black light erupted from parchment and unscrolled to reveal a passage, of which, Lilith read aloud:

"I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."

It shut. Sound became mute. A horrible scream broke that silence and portals began to rapidly open in the sky. The first of the scrolls had been released…

[Silver Eyes]

[Due to poor introduction on my part this is being retconned for now. It'll be brought up again, at least the topic itself ]