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Chapter 129: So Much Discord

Nathanial and Liam stood by the table in the backroom of the Pixiu Kao Zhen's antiquities store. The Akita glanced at his friend and tried to come to a decision about how best to show off his discoveries. First, maybe a subtle clue. Nathanial opened the small bag of dried jasmine flowers in his pocket and levitated one out. He let it float by Liam's left paw and bowed deeply. "Thank you, Liam-sensei. Thank you for everything." He felt his ears heating up and ducked his head. He subconsciously grabbed his tail with both paws, too, the same way he'd held his security blanket as a young pup. "I, um, I-I know you like jasmine, and Zhen sells these here, so I got you one as a little present."

Liam's face softened the way it often did when Li took over, but none of the other cues common to the old monk showed. Liam scooped the flower out of the air and let it rest in the middle of his small paw. "I do love jasmine, my friend." He gently rubbed the brittle petals with a finger. "They are so delicate. Diminutive. Yet these beautiful little flowers can fill a whole valley with their fragrance, and flavour entire crates of tea with their soothing aroma." Those brown eyes glowed with fondness as they searched the down-turned face. "Why so formal, though?"

Nathanial's face heated a few more degrees. "I-I, well, you were, um, working as a healer so I thought the respect, well..."

His friend chuckled softly and hugged him, taking care not to crush the flower clutched in his black and tan paw. "I desire naught but your friendship, Sweet One."

The Akita's grin turned bashful, and a little teasing."And, maybe, my ass."

Liam growled playfully. "Most assuredly, but only if freely offered and when it would not aggravate our respective loves." The Rottie glanced around. "Now, as it may take quite some time for you to recover, I would like to look about." Liam let him go and stepped toward the door to the shop floor.

Nathanial knew Liam may feel a bit affronted by the display around the..._shrine,_but he hoped the Ancient One would also see the humour. Contradictorily, the Akita also saw the appeal of presenting his gifts to Liam at home where Geoff and Faelen could also enjoy the joke, but the full effect of the shrine was too good to pass up. He levitated his phone out of his pocket and prepared to record his friend's reaction. "I didn't, um, get a chance to look around the store -- in its entirety anyway." He pointed down the aisle that led to the shrine. "L-Let's go right, eh?"

Liam glanced back, confused. "As you wish. It is not what I had in mind, however, when I spoke of 'looking around.' I had thought to see a bit of the city."

"There's a lot of antique stuff, and I thought some of it looked neat. I kind of hoped, now that Dad's gone, that I might find something to get him. You know, for Saturnalia." Nathanial wasn't sure why he felt so shy, maybe because he was alone with Liam, and that really hadn't happened much since the carjacking incident. He really hoped Liam didn't get upset with the shrine; maybe it was a bad idea. The Akita didn't realize his paws were latched onto his tail, still. "Um, could you keep an eye out, too?"

Liam nodded, but the tightness around his eyes betrayed some worry. "Assuredly." He turned and began winding his way down the aisle, pausing occasionally to pick up a bowl, statuette, or other object. Everything in this area seemed to be wood. "Are you...scared? Nervous for some reason? I am not the cause of your discomfort...am I?"

Nathanial shook his head so vehemently he almost fell over, as his tail wasn't providing a counterbalance. "N-N-No! N-Not at all! Of course not!"

The faint buzz of conversation up front between Zhen and her customer fell silent. The Pixiu sat on the edge of her wide stool behind the counter, or at least her illusion did, since the real person sat in the middle, with her long leonine tail swishing behind her. The customer, an elderly and petite Pangolin woman, asked a question which made Liam's ears twitch.

The Rottie, however, directed the entirety of his attention on his friend. "You protest most vociferously and with evident signs of stress. Have I caused offence by informing your father you must not go to school? I did not wish to overstep any bounds, but I had no opportunity to speak directly to you before you saw him."

Nathanial shook his head again, though not so hard as to risk falling over. "N-No, it took me by surprise when he told me, b-but I know you never said I was fine. I w-was just scared you'd do wh-what Geoff's tried several times and..." He felt his throat seize up. "...leave me."

Liam grabbed him in a crushing hug. "Fool. An adorable fool, but you are such a fool nonetheless. Did I not give Geoff a most stern talking to for that imbecilic behaviour? I shall not leave you unless you wish me to leave. That was my fear and why I asked the question; you seemed most discomfited, and you addressed me with more formality than you had in quite some time. It was as if you sought distance between us."

The Akita hugged his smaller friend back just as hard, sniffling. "I, well, a single flower seems so..._small,_even if you like them, and a bag of dried flowers is a really odd gift, so I, um, well..."

The Rottie tipped his head back to bump the taller Dog's muzzle with his own. "Hush, sweet fool. I appreciated the sentiment behind the single flower. It..." Liam shook his head as if banishing cobwebs from his mind...or the ghost of a past life. Which life would be hard to say, as both Li and Yoishi could be the culprits. "It pleases me." He released Nathanial, who stepped away, blushing with fluffed fur.

The Akita was even less sure about showing off the shrine now, but Liam wandered down the aisle and paused by a rack of posters. Nathanial couldn't really tell him not to go without having to say why, and then he'd probably insist on seeing. There'd be all the negative emotions, which Nathanial was starting to dread, but none of the surprise and shared amusement. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He pressed 'record' on his phone anyway.

Then it happened.

Liam returned the small statue of a hippo to its place, stepped around the rack, and froze. He slowly turned his head to look back at Nathanial, his face raw with the pain of betrayal as tears spilt from his large brown eyes, and a single, tiny jasmine flower slowly drifted toward the floor released from numb paws. The look on his face said he _knew_Nathanial had intended him to see this, and he probably assumed Nathanial's behaviour was because of it -- that the Mage was afraid of being his friend anymore because of the Ancient One's nature.

The Rottie struggled to speak past his constricted throat. "I'm... I'm not a god."

Nathanial dashed toward his friend, crushing the white flower with his hindpaw, and this time he was the one to seize the other in a tight embrace. "I know. I'm sorry; this was supposed to be funny. It's you, but at the same time, it's not you at all."

The small Dog sobbed into his friend's shoulder. "I don't want to be on pedestals. To be enshrined and alone, kept apart and gazed at in distant adoration. I want to be me. A person, not a god!" Liam pushed Nathanial away and wiped furiously at his eyes. "Shinobi do not cry."

Nathanial put his paw on Liam's cheek and brushed at the damp fluff with his thumb, though he knew his own fur was also wet with tears. "You aren't a god. You aren't a shinobi, either, or a priest, or a member of a monastery, or an assassin, or anything else. You may have been some of those other things at one point, but you aren't_now -- not anymore. You're my _friend, and I-I'm really sorry I h-hurt you. I thought you'd see the humour in it. Dad d-did, and I know G-Geoff would, too. Probably even Faelen. You aren't kept apart from us. C-Can't that be enough?"

Liam grabbed Nathanial and hauled him into another hug, sniffling and nodding despondently as if reluctantly admitting he'd never be accepted by most people. The Rottie abruptly stiffened in fear. "Faelen, he's terrified. Something has happened back home."

Nathanial froze, too, and his fear turned to outright panic when Micah activated Nathanial's Mage Sigil. "Shit! Micah's in trouble!" He let Liam go, and dashed toward the back room with his friend hot on his tail. The Akita couldn't 'peek' through the connection formed by the spell, but he could easily drop one of the Society Agents' scrying spells there.

Micah stood in the kitchen next to an extremely distraught Faelen. Conor and Dirk were on the far side of the counter, and the Water Elemental looked furious. The broken glass in his paw kind of gave it away, even if the ragged balls of water orbiting his head didn't. Geoff was nowhere to be found. Nanny couldn't be blamed for his absence though; she looked too wrapped up studying the various entries in her notebook in the basement.

The Mage spoke to Faelen. *Faelen, it's Nathanial. Where's Geoff? What happened?*

Faelen jumped in surprise. "Nathanial!? Where are you? What happened over there? Liam? Is he all right?"

Nathanial levitated his various parcels, but his suspicions kept him from opening a portal home. *He's fine. Geoff saw you react, didn't he? He's gone to the Plane of Darkness to try to find me.*

Faelen nodded and calmed down a little. "Yeah, you've got to find him! Please!"

Nathanial opened a portal to the plane and stepped through to the regular hunting grounds of his pack. *I will. I'll bring him home safely, Faelen.* He dismissed the scrying device, severing the connection.

Liam cleared his throat loudly, and rubbed at the wet fur around his eyes. "I trust you do not plan on leaving me here, nor leaving me in ignorance. What occurred?"

Nathanial waved his paw, and a circle of purple light surrounded the portal. "Come on through." He frowned at his friend in thought as Liam hopped across planes; despite his obvious worry and even more obvious lingering feelings of betrayal and fear, the Ancient One looked almost ecstatic as he turned about, trying to examine everything at once. Nathanial's frown wasn't because of that, but rather due to the problem of how to make this ward mobile."Faelen felt your...emotions and reacted in some way. Geoff read something into it and came here to try to reach me."

Snow and most of his pack appeared around them, lounging idly on various rocky protrusions or slowly pacing around the edge of the ward. Snow peered through the portal and locked eyes with the Pixiu just as Nathanial closed it. The Pixiu looked very shocked at the sight of the blasted plains.

The Mastiff turned to the two bipeds. *The Dark One is here. That is why the Ancient One is with you? He can't help fight those who hunt your mate if he can't move.*

Liam chuckled. "No. That does pose a problem, Nathanial. As for Geoff, he would be wise to fear Conor and Faelen more than anything that wanders this barren landscape."

Snow cocked his head to one side. *They seek to consume his very essence? That...doesn't fit with what we know of them. We thought the Vaporous One served the Dark One, and the Water One cared for his offspring more than most else.*

Nathanial found the description of Faelen hilarious, as did Liam. The Rottie grinned but kept focused on the matter at paw. "What is the focus of the ward, Nathanial?"

The what? Nathanial tapped his muzzle. Right. Area wards, like the ones Nanny used earlier, were focused -- anchored might be a better word -- by the runes or glyphs used to create them. Some others, like the ones Mr. Doull used in his store, were set on a container, and anything inside it was warded. A display case and its contents, for example. Otherwise, a single object was the 'focus,' and it emitted a field of protection like his mother's amulet and the anti-magic 'ward' it created. Liam wanted to know how he made the circle he stood in. "I don't know. I just...made_it. Give me a moment. Um, but first--" He turned to the Shadow Mastiff. "--Snow, where _is Geoff?"

Snow huffed and twitched his floppy ears. *Flying. We lost track of him. We believe he is still in the plains and searches for you or a way to go to where you were.*

Too bad Nathanial sucked at fire spells, a nice fireball would make a great_flare. If he couldn't use fire perhaps a shiny beam of light would work. The moment the Mage thought of it, though, Snow leapt back snarling. _*You would call on that Light monster here? Are you trying to summon every predator on the plane? You might even attract Its attention!*

"'It'?" Liam asked. "What is 'It'?"

Nathanial frowned in concentration again. It looked like his ward mightn't be a proper ward at all. "The thing that lives to the, um, south, for lack of a better descriptor. The opposite direction of the darkest part of the plane. Snow doesn't know what It is, but anything that gets close to It just...vanishes. Dies. Gets consumed like a dandelion in a forest fire." He tapped his muzzle and wandered around the purple circle. "I still think it's the fastest way of getting Geoff here. We can leave right after." No, the ward didn't keep anything out the way it should; it was more like it contained a pocket of another dimension or plane and superimposed its rules over everything in it. That kept Liam, in this case, from suffering the life-draining effects of the Plane of Darkness, while 'subjecting' him to the presumably neutral rules keyed to the other plane, if that's what it was. That begged the question: what plane? Later. He'd bring Nanny, maybe, and Agent Jay on the field trip and they could figure it out. Well, maybe leave his grandmother out; it'd be really stupid to have Liam, Jay, and Nanny in one spot. Liam might relent and leave Nanny alone for his sake, but Jay couldn't.

Snow backed away even before Nathanial reached out for the Light energy. *We think this is too dangerous, Alpha. We really suggest you reconsider.*

The Mage shrugged and raised his paw even as Liam reached out and opened his mouth to side with Snow. How could a bit of light hurt? 'Little lancing lights lead my lovely laddie nigh.' A brilliant beam of light crackled upward, piercing the deep gloom and eerie silence with the sound of a thousand sweaters being pulled out of the drier on a deep winter's night. The beam of light looked like it fragmented into frayed threads of splitting yarn as it climbed, and soon covered a fairly wide patch of sky above them. There was no way Geoff could miss that. Unfortunately, neither could anything else. 'Threads of life, threads of fate. Twinkle like tiny stars. The threads of stars sitting 'twixt Atropos's shears.'

The essence of the plane seemed to shiver like the last time Snow pulled his protection from Nathanial, but it seemed...deeper somehow, like the entirety of the plane took notice of him, not just the nearby beasties. The large Shadow Mastiffs crouched onto the ground peering about nervously. *Stupid Alpha! Stupid, foolish Alpha!* Three worms reared out of the ground two hundred metres north of them and screamed their challenges to the broken sky above.

Liam gaped at the sight of the half-buried monstrosities. "Lord Hades have mercy! Are those the creatures you nearly fed Garret to?" More beings appeared in all directions, from the smaller Shadow Mastiffs to the worms, and right through to giant Fur-like things devoid of any features other than a crude silhouette. All gave voice to their fury at the sight of the light above and began heading their way. The Ancient One scowled at his friend. "I have to say that Snow most certainly gave sound advice."

Nathanial grinned at the advancing horde. This promised to be interesting. "Broken sky summons my boy, with little beasts to poke and toy. Waiting long is such a bore, I weary with the endless chore. Time drags and wears on and on, fun I seek 'fore Nats is gone."

Liam backed away warily. "Nathanial? Do not do this while I stand trapped, I beg of you."

The last of the light faded away, but the sky still looked a little...off. He couldn't put his finger on it. Was someone looking at him from it? No matter, the fun was about to start. The fastest creatures were new ones: long reptiles similar in appearance to anole lizards, but with knobby hides like alligators and of similar size, too. Their jaws looked as powerful as the large predators', and just as deadly.

Nathanial cackled and leapt at the leader, gathering balls of crackling light in his paws as he went. The achromatic anole answered with a hiss, jigged to one side with startling agility, and flicked its tongue at Nathanial's leg like a chameleon. The Akita wrenched a rock out the ground between them and used it to block the tongue. He slammed the stone back toward the lizard, but it snapped its head aside and caught the rock with its foot. It braced itself to pull its tongue free.

One of the smaller Snows appeared over the lizard and dropped onto its back; the anole jerked aside again, but Snow expected this. A lithe dog, much like an oversized border collie, appeared right where their prey wanted to go and bit through the muscles of its knee. Two more members of Snow's pack surrounded it to prevent it from fleeing, and they swiftly dispatched it. The anole vanished in a burst of dark energy which the pack drew in hungrily.

Nathanial and the other lizards weren't idle during those few seconds. Noting his first prey would soon be killed, Nathanial refocused his attention on the next two. He threw the balls of light at the farther back one, and as he landed he skidded on all fours sending a telekinetic spray of gravel into the face of the closest. It threw its head back to protect its eyes, and it expanded its throat sac. Unlike an anole's flat and colourful one, this ballooned out like a frogs. The rocks bounced off it with the thrum of a bass drum. The lizard dropped its head and opened its mouth. Nathanial hopped aside expecting a tongue, but instead a sonic burst came forth with the same sound -- but grossly amplified -- as the impact of the gravel. The Akita crouched on all fours like a feral and howled at the oncoming distortion. A much more powerful burst belted out and sent the lizard flying. Some members of Snow's pack caught and tore the lizard apart; it died in another irresistible burst of energy.

The third lizard -- the one targeted by the balls of light -- frantically dodged and wriggled about in an attempt to evade the homing spheres, but one quickly caught it by the tail. The anole-thing shrieked in agony as the light began incinerating it slowly, like butter melting on a hot plate. The second ball struck the writhing creature in the head, but it still took four seconds for it to die. The light ate the entire thing over the course of twenty seconds, leaving only a fine dust that faded away. The plane rippled again sending two distortions out from the site of the lizard's demise, one to the north and one to the south.

The Mage paid it little mind other than to regret the loss of his food and cackled again as he sprang into the midst of a group of lizards. Three of them snapped their tongues at the pouncing Dog, but Nathanial grabbed them with his mind and wrapped the appendages together before they could react. Moving living things was much harder than dead or inorganic ones. Now hindered and working against each other, the lizards soon fell to his pack. A fourth leapt at the Akita as the Dog landed on all fours and tried to bite him, but he jumped once more just high enough to evade. Spinning in a tight roll, Nathanial backfisted his quarry with his right paw while the lizard shot forward beneath him and grabbed its leg with his left paw as he finished his spin, once more facing the ground. Letting the momentum of the lizard pull him to the left, Nathanial aligned himself as the reptile stumbled, crashing to the ground. As it landed, nose first, their combined weight pushed its head beneath its body and snapped its neck.

The Dog rolled with it and tossed the corpse to his friend once they slid to a stop. "A present for my pretty puppy pal to power potions and powders. Procuring planar products provided pleasing pieces in the past." The Ancient One didn't seem amused by the masterful alliteration or pleased with the gift. No matter, he thought it was hilarious.

The sky to the north grew darker. The sounds of many terrified creatures fleeing rose to the south.

Just as Nathanial prepared to meet the next wave, this time of non-Snow Shadow Mastiffs, a shape appeared in the sky to the north-east. A huge dragon stooped at a worm, and whacked it with its tail as it flew by. The force of the impact sent the gargantuan monster tumbling. Flying low, Geoff buzzed over the array of prey in front of Nathanial. Many scurried away from the new, large predator, but most seemed lost in their frenzy.

Geoff flipped back with a powerful beat of his large wings and came to a stop right overhead. The dragon vanished and the black-furred Wolf dropped quietly onto the broken ground. "Nathanial! You're all right!"

The Akita stared at Geoff for a split second before he noticed the crap-load of terrifying monsters approaching. When did they get there? Did they follow Geoff? Avoiding the Wolf's embrace, he grabbed his boyfriend's paw and hauled him toward the ward holding Liam. "Geoff! We've got to go! Hugs later!"

The Elemental looked surprised but let himself be dragged into the circle. Nathanial opened a portal and sent all the shopping bags into his basement. Liam picked up his medical bag and a giant dark lizard-thing he got from somewhere and jumped through, too. Geoff followed, and Nathanial closed it behind him. Snow appeared beside the Akita, though the rest of the pack remained in the Plane of Darkness. Nathanial knew three of them hadn't been nearby when he was there, so he bet the rest of the pack went to join them.

Snow turned his back to Nathanial looking very huffy and faded away again. The Mastiff was rather annoyed with him for some reason. Liam glared at the Akita. "I do not blame Snow in the slightest. That was most foolhardy. He war--" Nathanial felt the effects of using way too much magic strike him like a bolt from the blue. The world went dark.

---

Faelen sat in the kitchen trying very hard to be as calm as Da, but he was afraid he was closer to Conor. The Water Elemental had broken the glass of wine he'd held when Geoff dashed off to Hades knows where -- probably the Plane of Darkness -- and Da nearly had to deck him to get him to open his paw. Shards of glass stuck out of his paw pad, but Conor didn't seem to notice at all. He didn't react when Da began pulling them out, or when he used a disinfectant on them, or even when Da blotted the wine from his fur and clothes. Conor's fur rippled the same way Da's had at tea, and balls of water circled his head, though they didn't stay spherical all the time as the vagrancies of the Elemental's control made them react oddly. Geoff was in deep shit.

How could Da look so calm, though? Faelen could smell the fear and anger pouring off him, just like he could from Conor, but Da moved about like nothing was wrong. Wiping up blood and wine, sweeping the broken glass, trying to keep the food that should've been eaten twenty minutes ago warm, and all sorts of other mundane, little, and completely pointless tasks. Maybe that was how he seemed calm, he kept busy.

Faelen stopped shredding a plastic food container with his claws -- he hadn't even noticed he was doing it until now -- and stood up.

Micah looked up from the scroll he was doodling on farther down the counter and asked, "What's up?"

The Mist Spirit started to answer when he heard some odd noise downstairs. It sounded like a number of shopping bags being dropped. Then he felt Liam close by -- a furious Liam. Faelen felt like his heart nearly leapt out of his chest. Suddenly, Geoff cried out in alarm, _"Nathanial!"_Faelen beat everyone to the door to the basement, and they all raced down the stairs. Faelen felt his already taut nerves stretch to the breaking point the moment the bottom door cracked open and the stench of Demon filled the staircase.

Liam had already begun issuing orders. "Geoff, carry him to the massage table. It will be easier to examine him there, and we can simply move him to his bed if he needs no treatment." Faelen burst into the basement to see a manifested Geoff pick Nathanial up from the ground. Geoff looked fine; there was no blood, no wounds; only the scent of worry and fear. The Akita in his arms flopped about as though unconscious or, Hades have mercy, dead. As Faelen strode forward, he could see the faint motion caused by shallow breaths, smell the coppery tang of blood, and hear a faint wheezing coming from Nathanial's nose.

Conor seemed oblivious to everything but Geoff; he even knocked Micah into the door frame without pausing when the pup froze in front of him at the sight of Nathanial in Geoff's arms. "Geoff Ruarc McDougal!"

The Dark Elemental nearly dropped his burden in terror, and even Liam paused in consternation. Faelen noticed that both Nick and Rosemary were in the basement, and the younger Demon Mage jumped to stand in front of his older brother. From where Nick was he wouldn't be able to see his baby brother, who a very concerned Faelen realized lay sprawled out in the doorway, still and with a bleeding head-wound. "Leave him be! At least let him carry Nats to the massage table like Sensei told him to!"

Damn it all. Geoff had played a dangerous game when he'd challenged Faelen's da at tea, but he, at least, struck some deep chords in Dirk: namely, his sense of duty and his instinctive subservience to Elementals. Nick didn't have that pull on Conor.

The Water Elemental snapped.

The elder McDougal roared wordlessly, sounding just like the alpha on a bad day, and manifested fully. The four balls of water orbiting Conor's head streaked out with blinding speed, too fast for Nick to raise a fire shield, and knocked him back into Geoff. The three teens fell in a heap on the floor. The Dark Elemental, still manifested from his trip to the Plane of Darkness, howled in fury back at his father and created a kraken to cover his love.

Rosemary Marks, seeing all three of her grandchildren harmed, raised her paws and began chanting, but Da flipped at that. He manifested and launched himself at the elderly Demon Mage, forcing her to change her target. Liam, too, raced toward the Demon Mage with paws wreathed in Hades' flames, his expression tangled into a snarl of hate. Faelen felt horrified, and it worsened when he heard a sound that sent chills to his very core.

Nathanial laughed diabolically in a voice so deep it rivalled Jeff Walker's. The Mage staggered out of the kraken like a zombie in a horror movie with blood dripping from his head and his eyes rolled back to show the whites. He still looked unconscious, his body jerking like someone else moved him like a puppet. Everyone froze and stared. The voice coming from that cute muzzle sounded nothing_like the Mage's normal one, or even his _ab_normal one. "So..._fun._Blood. Show more...blood. Raining blood." Dark clouds formed along the ceiling, and Liam turned away from Rosemary to run at _Nathanial. The unconscious Mage raised his paws like strings were attached to his claws. "Father Balor, I have--"

Green vines sprang from the floor, encasing the possessed pup. Behind Faelen, Micah dropped a charred acorn from his paw and struggled upright. "Get out of Nats's head." He pulled three more acorns out of his bag.

Liam snarled silently and sprang at the green cocoon, fortunately allowing the blue flames to wither and die. 'Nathanial' said something that Faelen couldn't understand, something that sounded so corrupt, so vile, that he fell to his knees and retched. Liam dropped to the ground, stunned, and Micah's acorns bounced off the floor as he, too, collapsed. The vines fell away in a fine dust.

Nick began weaving his paws quickly, and Faelen saw him open his muzzle to speak. His possessed brother didn't give him a chance, though. Nathanial flicked his wrist, and a multi-tailed whip of fire entangled the Succubus Demon Mage. Da and Conor recovered from their shock, roared, and sprang forward. Another flick of the wrist, and this time it wasn't a whip that appeared but a huge six-armed Serpent-like Demon, arriving in a burst of acrid yellow smoke. Her upper body bore some similarity to a Succubus, notably the muzzleless face and huge breasts, but there was nothing even vaguely attractive about this sword-wielding monstrosity. Da and Conor couldn't get past it to reach Nathanial. Needing a boost, Conor sent one of his water balls to turn on the shower in the washroom. More water streamed into the room to empower him.

Rosemary gasped. "A Marilith. He's using a Balor's magic! We're fucked."

Nick laughed. "Ooh, ow, so pain. Very whip. Such erotic. Wow." The thing inhabiting Nathanial looked at him with sightless eyes wide in surprise. Power flowed out of Nick as he proclaimed, "Wake." Nathanial's body staggered as if hit by a heavy blow, but he didn't wake up; Micah and Liam did.

Faelen felt utterly useless. There was no fog to boost his Spirit powers or even his physical abilities. The six-armed Demon blocked his path to Geoff and Nathanial, and the way that thing fought against Da meant Faelen wouldn't last a second. The fiend swung all six swords deftly and never seemed to get in her own way. Almost every blow sliced into Da, but his skill kept them from hitting a vital spot -- his skill and his armour. The bone wasn't resilient enough to fully _stop_the swords, but it blunted enough of the force that Da's natural toughness meant he only took shallow cuts, which healed in a second or two at most. Her growing rage showed how frustrating she found that. Conor hung back so he could accumulate enough water to be useful. Rosemary slowly drew her paws apart, and between them a jagged, greenish-black spike formed; Faelen could smell the corrupt power in it from five metres away.

Geoff's kraken struck. Four tentacles coiled around the Demon-possessed Nathanial, and six more tried to grapple the snake-tailed Demon. She whipped around the moment a tentacle brushed one of her arms. She slashed metres off each tentacle before the kraken could react, and the air whistled over the scales on her tail as it slapped Da.

The kraken wrapped its coils more tightly around the struggling puppet-master. Geoff stepped out of the construct and moved toward the rubbery black mass of tentacles, joined by a staggering Liam. Both still looked nauseated from the vile words the Demon had spewed, and a lash of red fire remained around Nick. Liam flexed his right paw and grabbed the Balor's line of fire. The whip vanished. "There you go, Nicholas. My thanks for your assistance." The Ancient One's gratitude made Nick grin ear-to-ear, obviously more than pleased.

Rosemary finished making her crackling spear of demonic energy and jabbed a free paw at Da to create a standard Mage-shield of shimmering purple energy in front of him. The tail shattered it easily, but Conor threw a disc of water up to block it, paired with a leafy green one from Micah. She broke through those, too, but her momentum was spent, the force behind the attack negated.

It was then Faelen's da exploded.

Dirk had caught the tail in his arms, hugged it to his chest, and his armour exploded with a deafening explosion. Shards of bone tore through the Demon's flesh, sending a spray of gore across the floor towards the back wall. Da's armour reformed around him covered in black blood, and he smiled at the screaming Demon-bitch vindictively. There wasn't enough tail left in his arms to toss away.

Rosemary exhaled in impressed surprise. "Huh. Well, I'll be." A spray of Conor's water washed the tainted fluids off his bodyguard, shielding Dirk with more water as the enraged Marilith lunged at him.

A moment after everyone's attention was diverted by Dirk's concussive assault, the Balor exploded. Its body burst into flames so hot that they vaporized the kraken's tentacles. Nick spoke one eldritch word and waved a paw at Geoff and Liam, and a faint reddish shimmer covered them, protecting them from the searing heat.

The smoke cleared, and the Furs in the room gaped at what appeared before them as it laughed triumphantly, the sound defiling the souls of everyone in the room.

Nathanial...was no longer Nathanial. In his place, the Balor's monstrous, red, monkey-like face leered viciously at them, revealing foot-long fangs and curled ram horns perched in a tangled mass of black hair. Like a hologram made of swirling smoke, it wavered indistinctly, and they could see flashes of Nathanial beneath the solidifying facade. The Demon pushed itself upright, ballooning into well over four times its previous size, its thick, furless hide glowing a hellish crimson and straining over huge, grotesquely bulging muscles. Its skin stretched in a membrane over ragged, black-veined bat-wings. Scythe-like claws; a whip-like tail, corded with muscle and covered in jagged spines; and heavy, black, cloven hooves completed the ghastly image. It looked almost like a hyper-masculine version of a Succubus, and it stank.

It stank of sulphur and rot, just like...

Faelen's eyes widened as he realized. 'Shit! It smells like Rosemary's grimoire!' Idea and action occurred simultaneously as he raced to the entertainment area.

The possessing Demon looked across the room and met Dirk's gaze. Its eyes flared with infernal power, and the Bone Spirit dropped bonelessly to the floor, still and utterly silent.

Rosemary glanced between the Balor and the Marilith, noting Conor was the only one standing between an injured Micah and certain doom. She flung her spear at the female Demon. A quick slice of a sword cut it in half before it even got close, but the magic weapon vaporized and settled over the monstrosity. Red boils erupted across the Demon's whole body; her eyes watered and then began to bleed, explosive sneezes rocked her body, and her belly gurgled ominously. Patches of discoloured, rotting flesh spread across her limbs. Seconds later, ichorous blood gushed from her mouth and nose as wet coughs joined the sneezes. Bloody lesions grew where the dead flesh hadn't reached yet, and...

Faelen tried to block the gurgling shrieks of agony from his ears and averted his gaze as the Demon's body rotted away, concentrating on finding that damned grimoire. If this was where the source of the influence came from, then he could stop it before the possession was complete. Where was it? It should've been right there!

Rosemary ran the opposite way he did, to stand guard before her youngest grandson.

The Balor flapped its wings in a heavy heave, releasing a huge telekinetic burst of wind and fire, and flicked its whip around Nick's throat at the same time. The firestorm blasted Geoff back through the wall into Nick's room, while Liam braced himself in a strong stance, his arms held before him to ward off the attack. Instead of being flung through the air, he slid backwards, slamming hard into the kitchenette. Nick struggled futilely against the noose as the wind hit, knocking his hindpaws out from under him. The whip prevented him from being flung away and nearly snapped his neck.

The Demon laughed coarsely. "You'll be my first slave, boy." He hauled Nick up and breathed in his face. "I'll enjoy break--"

The Balor shuddered, and a high pitched cackle burst from his mouth. "Daddy's home! You miss me?" Faelen had never felt so relieved to hear psycho-Nats in his life.

The Balor hadn't given up, though. "No!_This is _my body now!"

The Nathanial-possessed Demon looked up curiously at the clouds overhead. Nathanial's crazed voice asked, "You promised a rain of blood. Where is it? It's easy enough to do." He set Nick down gently and patted his head, before Nick collapsed to his knees. "Here's looking at you, pup." The clouds roiled violently, and dark brown rain soaked the room. It looked and smelt like chocolate milk.

A small part of Faelen's mind noted the Marilith had vanished, probably gone back to where it came from, its liquefied remains evaporating in a billow of noxious smoke.

He finally found a large canvas bag stuffed under the couch's pillows. 'There!'

The Balor took over again, grabbed Nick around the throat, and lifted him off the ground. It growled furiously. "My_body. _My toy. My world. If I can't bring Father Balor back, I'll destroy it all!" Faelen managed to haul the massive book out of the bag; it was much heavier than it had any right to be, and it struggled to free itself from his paws. The Balor must have sensed something, because its eyes widened in shocked fear and it stared at the Mist Spirit in enraged horror. "No!!!" The book sprang from Faelen's paws, but he caught it again before it got more than a dozen centimetres away. There was a reason he always won the best goalkeeper of the year awards. Oddly, it hadn't moved toward the Demon but to the stairs.

Rosemary cried out, "Don't! Do you know how expensive--?" She broke off when she saw the fear on the Balor's face. "Do it."

The Balor vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving Nathanial behind, even before Faelen could begin to tear into the grimoire. The book released a powerful burst of telekinetic force, and it fell from Faelen's numb paws.

Rosemary quickly cast a spell, and the grimoire vanished. She smirked when most everyone gaped at her. "I was bluffing, and the Balor fell for it. Do you _really_think I'd let that book be destroyed? It's worth more than all your clans put together."

On the other side of the room, Nick caught Nathanial before he could fall. The eldest Marks pup blinked, and his eyes rolled the right way around to show his normal bright blue irises. He chuckled weakly at Nicholas, but his voice still carried the tone of the psychotic pup. "Sorry, no cotton candy clouds today." Nathanial passed out again, and the odd chocolate milk rain vanished, though the soaked-in puddles remained.

Micah whined from the staircase, "Aww! I wanted to see if it tasted good."