Post by thefangedrose on Apr 16, 2024 17:28:20 GMT -8
Disclaimer
This series contains elements of a supernatural nature and will play a parody of the Judao-Christian faith. It is not meant to be mocking or subversive but simply done for a creative outlet.
The supernatural elements of this storyline were not always present. “The Pact” is a concept that kept Jesse’s original “Walk the Line” idea alive while honoring that none of them had these “abilities” five years ago.
I hope you enjoy it.
I give you Chapter 18!
Possible Trigger warning
You. Were. Warned.
You. Were. Warned.
Civil War 2
Chapter 18
The Three Kings
Location: Hidden Hills, California
Date: April 14th
Time: 3:14 AM
Morgan Payne sat back in her seat at her computer inside Mary's Malibu home. Music bumped in her headset as clicked away at her screen, working on some editing for her latest YouTube video. She was snapped out of her focus when her own voice singing back in her ears was interrupted by the familiar ringing of a voice call on her Discord. She paused the playback and opened the window, pausing when she saw her cousin Jessie's icon across the top of her screen. Morgan accepted the call.
"...Bean?"
As soon as the call was accepted, the familiar face of Jessie Robinson popped on the screen. She flashed a soft smile, waving at her cousin, the familiar room in the castle where she stayed when she visited in the background. She sat in her chair, no makeup, her hair down and a little frizzy.
"Hey, Morgan!"
Morgan turned her camera on, allowing her cousin to see her in return. The woman folded her arms across her desk with her long hair tied back in a loose ponytail at the end, dressed in - from what Jessie could see - a black, sleeveless "Hero Up" shirt with the neckline cut out, hanging off one shoulder. She studied Jessie's face for a moment before smiling back at her.
"Hey, sweetie. What'chu up to? ...You doin' a'ight?"
Jessie couldn't help but smile as she finally saw Morgan on the other side of the screen. She gave a glance around her room, it looked like it was just an instinct more than anything at this point as she didn't even react to anything.
"I'm not doing much, just sitting in my room and yeah, I'm doing okay. Nothing bad has happened to me."
Morgan swallowed softly and let out a low sigh of relief. Great news to her ears. It was something positive at least, in light of mostly everything else that had been going on.
"Nothin' at all...?"
Her suspicions were still raised regarding Jessie's overall well being. Morgan hated not being able to do anything. She couldn't sneak Jessie out while at shows, nor could she even say anything to the authorities. No matter what, no matter where...they were always watching.
"Nothing at all. They haven't laid a hand on me. But I also don't really leave my room much."
Jessie responded, her eyes still instinctually looking around her room. She did her best to stay focused on Morgan once she noticed she was doing this. Jessie smiled, focusing on Morgan now.
"I hope you're not worrying too much about me."
"Wish I could say I wasn't but...I am, Bean. Eres familia..."
Morgan didn't miss it this time. That scan of Jessie's eyes around the room.
"Hey... Bean, mírame..."
She stared hard back at Jessie through their screens. A tension rising in her. Not directly at her cousin, but moreso the situation she was starting to pick up on.
"...¿Quien está contigo?"
Jessie lets out a sigh, knowing Morgan caught her glancing around the room. She did one last quick little glance before turning her attention back to Morgan through the screen.
"Just some of them. They don't ever do anything, just stand watch. Sometimes Sariel checks in on me. They just watch and observe, nothing more, Morgan, I promise."
"...Bean..."
She sighed. Morgan's jaw twitched at the name of the one she always heard referred to as Lucifer's Right Hand. A woman just as...she almost wanted to say reasonable, as she was deadly. It still didn't change facts, though. Her cousin was an unwilling guest within The Castle which used to belong to her and The Kingdom; now occupied by the Children of Nephilim after that fateful night.
"I'm sorry dis happened..."
"It's okay. I don't blame anyone. I never should have ran back in."
Jessie replied, her eyes still now just fully focused on Morgan. It was clear Jessie was trying to calm Morgan down, reassure her the best that she could.
"I know I'll see you again sooner rather than later, but you got to be strong and patient right now."
Morgan stifled a laugh. It wasn't that she was dismissing Jessie's words. Just...she loved this little girl and her selflessness. So much. Here she had been, worrying herself sick over her being alright and yet Jessie was concerned about her, right back.
"I'ma be fine, prima... Prometo. You tha one needs t'be strong. ¿Me escuchas? You stay strong. You don't listen to a word they tell you. An' you Do. Not. Give. In. No matter what."
"I'll be fine, I promise, Morggy."
Just as Jessie said this, the door behind her opened up and standing there in the doorway was the familiar hulking form of Josie Bridal standing there with a little blonde beside her. It looked like Josie wasn't even looking at the screen, her attention was just focused on Jessie and the girl didn't even need to look back knowing who was there.
"I gotta go, Morgan. I'll call again soon, I promise."
"Bean..."
Her voice trembled and she touched the screen as if to touch her cousin's cheek, fighting the tears she felt welling up in her eyes. Morgan's gaze shifted when she saw the door open in the background. Her blood ran from cold to hot in a matter of less than a second. She didn't even care or wonder who the unfamiliar blonde was. Her eyes locked right in on...her. The woman known among the Children of Nephilim as "Abaddon." A single tear escaped down her cheek, however the look in her eyes was anything but grief. It was...something else... Something dark. Something driven by anger. Hate. An intent. Murder.
Josie finally seeing the person on the screen, walked to Jessie and laid a well-muscled arm across the slender girl's shoulders. She looked down into the face of Morgan on the screen and a grin split her lips showing off the slightly sharpened canines.
“You’ll excuse us….time for me to work her out.”
Morgan’s jaw set and her eyes narrowed in unrivaled hatred. Her next words were directed not at Jessie but at the towering woman standing behind her.
"...I'm gonna kill you..."
Jessie blew a kiss at the screen, giving Morgan a reassuring look that she would be okay. She smiled softly before her screen went dark as Jessie hung up the call.
Location: Hobbs, New Mexico
Date: April 14th
Time: 3:14 AM
Luckily for them, the commitments that required certain people to be in certain places had not come up while they had all been forced to run from the house in Reddick. After Maiko joined them in Vicksburg the group continued together until they came to their next stop.
Hobbs, New Mexico.
The group arrived just after sundown and booked up half a dozen rooms at some run-down motel near the westernmost border. Seven rooms with seven different names on six different cards, leaving The Children’s Network unable to locate a single person booking so many at once.
The small army of demons were all given two rooms to themselves with John serving as a focal point shifting between the two to see to any of their needs. Maiko and Ashley of course took the third, with Hana in the fourth, Silk and Shadow in the fifth, Danika the sixth and The Sins and Rivers in the final room.
Everyone filled into their rooms to get changed or showered from the long drive…except Danika—a conversation she and The Sins had exchanged a few days before still flowing through her mind.
For the life of her, Danika couldn’t figure out what was keeping The Sins on the surface. The events of March 17th had done more than reconnect the soul to its body….it had brought back The Hollow.
The prison in which this bloodline had kept The Sins in check for so many generations.
Why wasn’t it forced back inside?
“I didn't count on the Hollow.
Why would he just stay there? I do not understand. I assumed when he could he would just....return.
What am I missing?”
She had mused publicly to herself. His reply wasn’t at all what she expected, although she should have.
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe he isn’t strong enough?
This flesh was my prison long enough Bayne. Nothing more.”
Ridiculous, she had told herself. It’s personal feelings about its prison were irrelevant. It was designed for a reason.
“No, absolutely not. It's something else. What aren't you telling me?”
She demanded.
“I don’t like your tone. I am not the one who decided to get up in their feelings and fuck with the natural order here.”
She could sense the rage and barely contained wrath in every letter of his very public reply, but it had hit her as she replied.
“No one got up in their fee….”
Feelings.
How could she have been so stupid and missed it. The final push that sent him over the edge….that made him take the life of his business partner Stephen Morrow? It had cost him everything.
His home.
His family.
His wife.
His children.
Dean had lost everything and was suffering.
That was why he wasn’t forcing The Sins back into the Hollow. He was using it instead to hide himself.
To hide from what he did to Stephen. To hide from what he nearly did to his sister. To hide from the sheer agony of losing….HER, as ridiculous as Danika found it….it was true nonetheless.
When Michael and The Sins walked into their room they found her leaning on the little sink in front of the mirror. Michael offered her a smile but the hulking figure behind him just starred.
“Can I borrow him for a bit?” She asked Michael motioning to the masked man with a finger.
“I don’t see why not.” Michael mused. “I need some sleep so…”
“Why?” The sins demanded harshly.
Danika inclined her head to Michael and pushed her way off the countertop. Planting both feet to the floor she crossed the room, motioning with a finger for it to follow her.
The Sins let out an aggravated growl but turned and left behind her leaving Michael alone to get some rest. Together the two of them walked to the room next door sitting at the end of the second-floor balcony.
As they did Hana stepped out and inclined her head to Danielle.
“It is done Harbinger.”
“Thank you dear one.” Danika purred and opened her hand to The Sins. “After you.”
The eyes behind the mask narrowed but he walked into the room. Inside the room was dark except for a single candle burning on the small table Hana had moved from near the wall between the beds to directly in front of a chair sitting between the foot of the beds. Behind the chair facing the back of the chair and candle was an unpowered fan. A blanket sat covering the mirror near the bathroom door. On each side of the dresser with the candle were two folding chairs, each holding a three-foot tall mirror and sitting directly across from the first chair on the other side of the table sat a final chair facing the first.
Danika eased the door closed leaving the room dark save for the faint flickering of the candle. Danika moved around the hulking figure, running her fingertips over the back of his upper arm to his bicep as she passed.
“I need you to trust me.” She told it.
“Considering what you have been attempting lately?” The gravely voice growled. “Unlikely.”
When she reached the other side of him she spun around on her heels and looked up into the eyes of the mask staring down at her. She puffed her lip out and whispered.
“Pwease?”
The thing released another aggravated snort and narrowed its eyes at her.
“....Fine.” It growled. “What do you want?”
“Take off the mask?” She asked.
The tone of the growl he let out changed completely at that request. It changed from mild annoyance to sheer animalistic warning.
“No.”
Danika closed the distance between them until she stood nearly on his feet looking up at his downturned face. Her tiny frame was dwarfed by his. Her arms came up slowly and his own snapped up grasping her by the wrists.
“You can’t hurt me and you know it.” She told him. “Trust me.”
The two stared at one another in a near stalemate and then his hands relaxed, releasing his grip on her wrists. She was right. Since she came back It knew somehow It was unable to do her harm. It wasn’t an affection thing, it had to do with where she had come from. It couldn’t raise a hand to do her harm.
Standing on her tiptoes she placed her hands on each side of the bottom edges of the mark and lifted slowly. The snake-scale mask slid up It’s face and over It’s hair before coming free in her hands.
A face she was so familiar with looked so remarkably different. He had grown a beard since she had last seen him. A beard now marred by a small patch of hairless skin running from the right edge of where his lips met and ran two inches up his cheek.
Where a bullet had torn into his face through his opened mouth as he charged screaming at the police in North Carolina.
“Now…” She whispered motioning to the chair in front of the table. “Please sit.”
The Sins hesitated for a moment but ultimately he did as she asked. The wall beyond the group of chairs saw his massive shadow pass as he moved to the chair. A shadow that grew even larger as he sank into the chair.
Danika joined him, stopping only long enough to turn the fan on before she dropped down into the chair behind the mirrors. Crossing her legs she leaned back and stared at a face she could no longer see through the burning candle.
“If you move…..” She explained. “The fan will blow the candle out and drown the room in darkness.
The thing sat in silence for a time staring forward at her and found itself…unnerved…by the dual reflections it could see in the reflections staring back at it.
“What is this?” It asked.
“A conversation.” She whispered in reply. “Relax. Lean back and relax. Stare ahead at me.”
“Wh…”
It had begun to ask why but broke off at the last second and instead simply allowed itself to relax back into the chair and stare into the vague outline of her shape.
The two versions of it stared back at it.
For nearly five solid minutes the two sat in silence as it stared ahead at the flame and beyond it at her flame-kissed form. From the corner of his eye, it seemed like one of the mirrors was darkening. Shadows grew around the edges of his reflection causing his actual reflection to become blurry. A trick of the light no doubt from the table of the table in front of him.
As time ticked by it found itself nearly dozing as it stared at the pair of reflections staring back at it.
“Can you hear me?”
Her voice suddenly called out into the dark room.
“Yes.” Came it’s reply.
As it sat relaxed and half asleep.
“Good.”
Slowly she pushed herself up and it heard her as she moved around one of the mirrors and squeezed between its chair and the bed. It felt the brush of her clothes as she moved around his shoulder and suddenly he could see her in the reflections standing behind him between him and the fan.
It heard the click of the fan and suddenly the candle flickered violently as the room was filled with the full force of the window being kicked around their bodies. The reflections distorted with the flicker of the fire.
“What do you want?” His voice asked in a broken whisper.
The violent flicker of the candle caused the leftmost mirror to seem to disappear briefly and the shadowed reflection on his right shadowed him staring out of the swirl of darkness and shadow.
“Why are you hiding my love?
“Don’t call me that.” The whispered pain pain-filled voice replied from the rightmost mirror.
The violently flickering candle twisted in the intense air current drowning out the rightmost mirror and suddenly she could see his sneering twisted face from the left mirror.
“Because he’s a weak coward.” The thing snarled.
“Who are you?” The weaker broken voice from the rightmost mirror asked.
Standing behind him Danika raised a hand brushing the blonde hair behind her right ear.
“You still think I look pretty this way?”
The body sitting in the chair tensed at the question. The face reflected in the rightmost mirror reflected shock.
“Danielle?” The broken voice whispered. “But....you died.”
“So did you,” Danika told him. “Yet another thing we have in common. Now…Why are you hiding?”
“I am not hiding.” The face in the mirror answered.
“I told you he is weak.” The face in the other mirror snarled.
Danika’s eyes moved from the face in the right mirror to the left, into the taunting scarred face and then moved just as slowly back to the other without a word.
“Yes, you are.” She told him. “Are you forgetting that I know how The Hollow functions? Its mere existence would be a constant pulling sensation at The Sins. To keep them contained. The only way it wouldn’t try to pull them back in….is if something else occupies it.”
For a time the only sound was the whir of the fan. Danika didn’t break eye contact with the shadowed face in the right mirror. She stared until the eyes in the mirror downcast and in misery, he whispered.
“I failed them,” Dean whispered in agony. “My wife. My children. My sister. I have nothing left. I heard you….when I was lying in that bed? I heard you. Telling me that Michael didn’t need me….he needed what was inside me. So I surrendered.”
“I didn’t tell you to surrender.” She corrected. “I told you that it was needed. Harness it, not unleash it.”
“TO HELL WITH THAT!” The leftmost mirror roared but Danielle didn’t even look this time.
“And now you bring me back to this?”Dean demanded from the right mirror: “The twins won’t know me. What we called forever, has ended. Why Danielle? Did you hate me so much?”
Hate….
Shock and…a little tiny bit of pain showed in the blonde woman’s eyes.
“I could never hate you.” She told him gently. “You fought for me Dean. Even after I had to betray you…you fought. I couldn’t hate you even if I wanted to. I called you back to this to live Dean. A chance to make things right.”
The head in the chair came up as the face in the right mirror lifted.
“How?” He asked with a twinge of hope in his voice. “My wife? My children?”
“Gone.” Danielle told him sadly shaking her head. That was unfortunately not something he could make right and she knew it. “Sources tell me that they have moved on with their lives.”
“Then what remains for me now?” He asked with the pain seeping back into his voice.
Danika laid her hands on the big shoulders in the chair in front of her.
“Life Dean.” She told him. “Life remains for you now. Veronica Bellamy is already working on Stephen. After a discussion with Peyton, It’s looking like that one is going to be self defense.”
“....It wasn’t.”
“It is now,” Danika commanded. “Your sister needs you. Her family needs you. That woman Shay? She needs you. So many friends who miss you. Do not allow one single person to cloud your self-worth. You matter to so many.”
“I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!” The thing in the left mirror screamed.
“You do not have a say.” Danika told it shifting her eyes to the mirror in disdain. “This is his choice.”
“It does.” Dean told her. “I cannot harness it without its consent.”
“And I won’t consent.” The thing snarled.
Danika drew in a deep breath and released it through her nose.
“How about a compromise you two?” She asked and for the first time, the two faces seemed to look…oddly at one another. Or in the direction of the other mirrors at the very least. Then both looked back up at her. “For now….A shared existence.” She mused. “When we are here…or behind closed doors. Meetings, private time, with our friends? No mask. You control things….and when we go out? You can put the mask on and let IT out.”
Once again the two mirrors seemed to glance at one another. This time something passed between them. Without warning the body in the chair stood up, the wind from the fan moved around his stomach snuffing the candle outt.
Danika nearly held her breath as she felt around the bed to the wall where she clicked the light switch. He was standing perfectly still with his head down but before she could check on him there came a knock on the door.
Danika, standing beside it to hit the switch, pulled it open to reveal Ashley Kenyon standing outside.
“Michael needs you two.” She told them.
Danika went to tell her she needed a bit more time when the sound of booted feet told her that the body behind her had approached.
“Let’s go.” The gravely voice said.
Ashley looked up into the unmasked face of Dean Matthews and whatever she saw in his eyes caused her to smile, step in and wrap her arms around his torso in a gentle hug. Pressing her face into his chest she told him gently.
“....Welcome back.”
Somehow Ashley had just….known.
There was a softness in his eyes as he hugged her back but the haunted pain hung behind them. He had lost everything he loved in this life and now…he had to find a way to live without it.
Together the three of them left the room and entered the room next to it to find Michael sitting on the edge of the bed, groggy from being woken up. He looked up and lifted the phone to toss but but stopped at the last second when he saw the face of the man standing with the two women.
“Dean?” Michael asked.
“Rivers.” Dean answered inclining his head. “Been a long time.”
Michael tossed the phone to Danika, who saw a tweet from Jasmine Matthews. All it was…was a red flag.
“Morgan saw something….” He told her. “They want to see us immediately. She's pissed. We’ll fill him in on the road.”
“I really hate to see it, but you never wanna talk about it. You hate yourself a little more when you can’t live without it. It’s like praying for rain when you’re already drowning….”
