Alexian slowly raised her head to see the menacing sight forming overhead. It was Skylance's deadly promise, the punishment he was willing and able to enact should she make -- not the choice that was right or wrong -- but the choice that displeased him. Just as he had alluded to back in Reajh, he wanted her on his side: He wanted to use her as well as Mother to achieve his unspeakable ends. And, not only would Elial suffer a terrible fate, but thousands of innocents would undoubtly continue to die until Skylance got his wish.
He had the power, Mother's horrible power at his beckon, and he was all too eager to use it; his insatiable ambition was driving him into wanton confidence and reckless abandon.
And she feared that, right now, there was no way to stop him.
Alexian remained silent, awestruck, as did Sine, and Sizzlebeast spared no words either. The voice behind Tangent spoke with a victorious flair, "You're wasting time, Alexian. I'd dare not doubt my intentions to level this city to dust, as my will is absolute. I'd level this entire dispicable, unclean world if it were necessary so it would be wise not to test my resolve, Alexian. Join me, and you will assuredly be on the winning side of all of this, Alexian; I'll show you."
"No... Alexian," Elial gasped, opening his eyes and glancing toward his beloved High Seraphim. "Do not... take heed of his words. You must do what is right, Alexian."
"Are you apt to listen to the words of a dead man, Alexian?" the voice behind Tangent questioned. "This is about you, Alexian, and what you want -- what you need."
"He cares nothing of you or your desires, Alexian," Elial interjected, his voice gaining strength. "He is blind with power, and drunk with ambition. His one, true concern is only himself and his will."
As Tangent's external voice and Elial continued to argue, Alexian shifting her glance between them both as they spoke, the storm overhead was growing bigger and bigger quickly. Its core branched out into a hurricane-like shape, and bright gray lightning crackled throughout the corrupt cloud. Alexian lowered her head amidst the continuing argument, her face visibly torn, but on the verge of a major decision.
She shut her eyes tightly, then spoke, "I will join you, Skylance."
Elial and Tangent immediately stopped arguing, and both Elial and Sine looked overtly betrayed; both of them could hardly believe what they heard was true.
"Alexian...?" "Your Holiness!?"
The voice behind Tangent, however, was triumphant, and the Outcast was forced to extend his hand. "Very good, Alexian. You've made the right choice."
As the High Seraphim started toward the Outcast, her head still bowed, Elial threw himself out of Sizzlebeast's grasp, struggling to stay on his feet. "Alexian... this cannot be. What are you doing??"
She stopped alongside Tangent, her back still to the group. She raised her head up, and glanced briefly over her shoulder at Elial, saying heavily, "What is best."
The cocky angel just may have had some merit to his boasts.
Master Amodon had watched the display of raw power over the mountains with tremendous interest, and the cocky angel's, Skylance he called himself, offer resonated in his mind. In exchange for the Hellsend's cooperation in Skylance's plan, the cocky angel was offering the demon something that no other corrupt angel did: Earth itself. He was offering to take Heaven out of the picture forever, to cease its meddling in the affairs of Hell and Earth, and he assured Amodon that he had the means to do it.
And Amodon had just witnessed the means.
"What do you think, Amodon?" asked Telarn Blackbride, the Hellsend's new ace-in-the-hole, the double-dealing man who made the whole deal possible. The Outcast Series was also looking to the Hellsend Master for his answer.
The goblinoid demon nodded, and Terris translated his native gibberish: "Hellsend is in business."
"Masta Amadon," said the hellsend Caroline, who was looking behind them rather than at the devastated mountain range. "It's tha trayters."
"Get down!" Seethe yelled as he tackled his two teammates, just as a fireball soared overhead and blew up a small toolshed a little ways down the road.
Looking over his shoulder quickly, he could see the literal wave of Hellsend thugs and goons, both human and demon alike, running after them. A few had guns, and were firing haphazardly in their direction as well.
"Go, go, go!" Seethe yelled again, dragging Reese and Ayria back onto their feet again before bolting.
"We gotta get to cover!" Reese shouted, keeping his head low.
"You broke one of my nails you asshole!" Ayria complained as bullet whizzed by her head.
Ignoring Ayria's bitching, Reese had a good point. Seethe knew that they weren't going to be able outrun the mob, and he doubted that they could lose them in the maze of the cityscape; their best bet was to try and find some good, defensible spots and thin out their numbers, kill them all if they got lucky.
Seethe and his team rounded the next street corner, several bullets chipping away at the corner of the building and racing past the smalls of their backs, and Seethe firing back a few shots before he was completely around the building. They kept up their frenzied pace down the new, short street, just as the Hellsend mob spilled over onto it was well, keeping up their chase and hollering shouts and curses at the three relentlessly.
Seethe, Reese, and Ayria could all soon see that they were inadvertently running toward another group of people.
A group of three people and one, big Lycan.