Wednesday, December 21st, The Midnight Channel (Last Night!)

[thepull_mods]

Who: The Port's Latest Shadow Televisions Stars! And Thousands of Home Viewers!
When: Midnight, Wednesday December 21st
Where: In front of your Television Sets or Streaming NV TV. (Digital Cable? You'll still get the analog effect.)
Summary: Full Plot Details Here
Warnings: Please Put 'em In the Subject Lines As Necessary, Kids?

Comments

[paterelohim]

[Anna, Balthazar- Castiel's spared only by virtue of getting sick and staying inside, Michael has a stamp of approval that burns under the real Chuck's living skin like a cancer. Gabriel is MIA and has been for days- and He's never been happier to know it.

Which just leaves one.

So he runs.

He runs and runs and somewhere in the city, he finds what He's looking for: Lucifer. He finds Lucifer, having already seen the shadow once and shouted it down in languages that have been dead for centuries or were never alive, having already pissed the shadow off with His denial of its relevance to him.

Why would he accept the damn thing? Chuck's spent thousands of years not being That. Thousands of years and deaths and pains and weaknesses just to be the opposite of That, and long since decided to never be That again.

How silly of Him to give into that human weakness now. That sentimentality, this one time out of four dozen centuries, driving him to stupidly lead the shadow to its only remaining target, when without Chuck it wouldn't have been possible.

Still, Chuck is small and foolish and so very human, and He hides behind a Darkness-corroded car in horror as the Shadow steps out of the Darkness already, wrongness and old-world wrath rolling off of it in waves.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[After all this time, after spending every second actively or subconsciously thinking about Him, remembering His face, it's still such a blow to see Him that Lucifer can only stand and stare at Him.

He isn't ready to face Him. He hasn't won Michael over. They're not in the right world. But here He is, anyway, and it is the Father that Lucifer has planned on hunting down ever since he was cast aside.

He looks for Michael, terrified that his brother might strike him down again. But no, it's just God. The God he remembers so clearly, with the exact same expression he last remembers. It wrenches deep inside him and for just a second he feels so very young, and frightened.

He draws himself up straighter and cocks his head to the side with a smirk.]

It's about time. You know, your little order was a page right out of my book. But that's nothing new, is it, Dad?

[paterelohim]

Silence. [A raised hand, and Lucifer hit the ground face-first with enough force to crack bones.

Its eyes burned with starlight. Not distant, twinkling starlight, but the harsh fires of a boiling sun burning through oxygen and gases at billions of degrees and rising. Angry and infinite.]

You saw me last night. I know you did.

[abrotherlikeyou]

[Lucifer feels a cracked cheekbone starting to knit, feels blood pouring down his face when he tries and fails to get up. His vessel can't seem to figure out which way is up right now--just from one blow from Him.

But it hasn't dampened his hatred at all.]

What makes you say that, Daddy-dearest?

[paterelohim]

[Chuck watches from his hiding place, mouth open as the Thing bends down and reaches a great hand out.

All It does is touch him. That's it.

A single hand, laid gently on Lucifer's raw, weeping Grace.]

I will teach you respect.

[abrotherlikeyou]

[Immediate panic, so that Lucifer is trying to scramble away from that touch on his hands and knees.]

I thought respect was earned--

[paterelohim]

You are mine. I created you.

[Lucifer runs but he can't escape; the Being catches up and pins him to the ground with a soft, almost gentle touch. The simplest touch, like laying His palm against Lucifer's skin, of pure, searing Holiness against burnt, bleeding, raw and still-weeping Grace necrotic with Hellfire.

The gentle contact of a hand to Lucifer's cheek, that sends pain knifing through him and pins the angel to the ground.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[Lucifer can laugh off so much pain. There is no mortal (or immortal) who can compare to the agony of Hell.

Or so he thought. The touch of his father has never hurt Lucifer before. It has never been remembered as anything but comfort, and safety, and an utter lie...but not pain.

His first acid bath in Hell does not compare to this. His first ten thousand years in Hell's crawling, leech-infested pools of kerosene are like baby's first bubble bath compared to the simple weight of God's hand on him.

It's worse than Hell, and he can't even breathe to scream, it's as if Nick's lungs have dried into brittle gravel in his chest. He bleeds from his nose and ears, blood pours from his eyes as he sobs and pushes feebly at God, wanting to hurt him, to make it stop, oh Father, stop, his thoughts slur into nonsense and then into garbled noise.]

[paterelohim]

[The touch of his father shouldn't hurt, it wouldn't have, but the horrible Hell-scarring runs so deep that it's worse than a demon touching an angel's grace, or a human looking at an archangel's true form. So much worse.

From his hiding place, Chuck presses a hand to his mouth to cover the horrified, wounded sound he makes at seeing His own touch killing his son. It's so much worse than He even anticipated. He expected a fight, a beatdown, a horrible abusive attempt at smiting, but that's nothing to the twisting pain of seeing His simple touch burning Lucifer alive.

The knowledge that even His real touch, not that of a Darkness monster, would drive Lucifer insane with agony.

Knowing that for the rest of time, He can never lay a hand on his son again.

Sure, He wasn't planning on a beautiful reunion and He's always known exactly what kind of bloody ending they're all heading to, but seeing it play out like this is a punch to the stomach.

And meanwhile, the Shadow just hovers over Lucifer, a great thumb stroking the angel's cheek in a parody of tenderness.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[There's a sound like wet mud slopping onto pavement, as Lucifer shudders and coughs up blood and flesh. He doesn't call for help yet, it hasn't occurred to him that he can. Who could help? Who would even if they had that power?

But then God's thumb brushes tenderly against his cheek, and he feels Nick's skin split open like overripe fruit, exposing muscle and frantically pulsing veins.

Help help help

The prayer is thoughtless, desperate and blurted out to the universe. That's the worst of all; a very distant part of him is aware of how helpless he is. It's an even crueler torture than feeling Nick's bones drying up (a femur snaps like a twig in a stove), even worse than feeling his wings erupt into flames.

But he can't think, can't scream. Can't put words to his terror and anguish, not even to spite Him.]

[paterelohim]

[Chuck bites down on his fist and almost throws up. The Creature growls and cups Lucifer's face with both hands, feeling the destruction under his palms.]

You make a mockery of prayer.

[Then, even as Chuck stares in distress, the Thing makes Lucifer's wings spread out by force, twitchingly straining against the unDivine force dragging them out painfully and making them cruelly to unfold. It lays a hand on one of those six scarred wings even as Chuck bites back a noise of outrage. Outrage at that Thing existing, at it touching what's His, laying its hands on wings that He painstakingly crafted Himself so many aeons ago, at It having the fucking GALL to murder His own child right in front of him.

The prayer is still searing through his head, a punch to the stomach that he was never expecting.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[His wings. His tortured, breaking wings, and then God stretches them out as far as they will go and Lucifer sobs and screams at him to stop, stop, Father, stop--

But He doesn't and Lucifer's bones snap and splinter. The Hellfire springs to life and the second eldest can't even scream any longer, his throat is hoarse and raw with it. But his Grace, his Essence, goes on just as it had in the Cage, that same horrifying sound that had echoed through God's being for so many thousands of years.]

[paterelohim]

[Finally it's too much and Chuck runs out from his hiding place, screaming at the top of His lungs with an unhinged vehemence.]

Get the fuck away from him, you freak!

[The Shadow, already angered by Chuck's powerful internal denial and rejection of It, responds by telekinetically hurling Chuck into a wall and continuing to torture Lucifer's wings, moving from the first to the second pair, then the third, eying the fourth and final set. From beyond, Chuck picks Himself up and staggers closer, looking up at the towering Thing with considerable fear in his eyes.]

Leave him alone.

[It looks up from Lucifer to focus its flaming gaze on Chuck.]

You have no right to be here. [Pause.] Or every right.

[Whatever It's about to say next, Chuck knows it'll blow His cover. Silently, without any movement at all, Chuck lets Lucifer pass out from the pain. It's less cruel that way, letting him escape the horror while Chuck can fight with this monstrosity on His own.

So He does.

By the time Aslan shows up Chuck has already gotten into it. He's already balled his hands up into fists and glared and said you hurt my children and been told with a growl that they were never yours. He's already shouted down the horrible thing with yells that you aren't me, that I was never that hateful, that I love them and would do anything for them, only to be sneered at, anything but get off your ass. You don't care. You always wanted to be like me, just a little. To have this freedom to tell them to go fuck themselves and watch the world fall to pieces and burn. You already do it. Look at you. Small and pathetic in your filthy bathrobe watching the world destroy itself, you're already me. You shouldn't have to embrace this.

Chuck lost it then, screaming at the Thing that It doesn't know anything, that He loves them, that He loves Lucifer and always has and how dare he tell them otherwise how dare he touch His children. The Shadow has already pinned him to the wall with a terrible fist and snarled that you are pathetic, you are small and weak and let yourself be used and broken by that abominable mistake. He's already gotten into a shouting match with the mirror-thing and traded blows, drop-kicking the Shadow only to be slammed into the wall hard enough to break bones and rupture organs, to be picked up by the collar and shouted down. I will rip this world apart like the Sodom it is, I will destroy you and take this filthy stain back and rip through the universe to get home. I will do what you're too weak to do.

When the lion comes near the Shadow has Chuck against the wall, bleeding from everywhere possible and skin rent open in several places, eyes red with blood, mouth bleeding, eyes unfocused and spine crushed, leaving the lower half of his body useless. Still, He has one hand fisted in the shadow's face, fingers ripped right through the "skin" of the thing's cheek and teeth gritted with the effort of pouring wrath and Might into the thing to try to rip it to shreds. It isn't that Chuck is weaker- he's actually perfectly capable of destroying the thing, with no small effort, but the amount of power required to destroy God would tear the Port to pieces. The Shadow might be willing to use enough power to destroy the world, but Chuck isn't. He would rather risk death than see the world torn apart.

So it is that Chuck is pinned to the wall and dying, while still using more power at once than he's ever used in this place. More pure Godly might and wrath than Aslan has ever seen pour out of Chuck, and it still isn't even scratching the surface of enough. Even as the lion closes in, the shadow is snarling about the end of the world and angelic abominations, about Chuck and what an insulting worm of a man he is, how It can be the God that Chuck has forgotten how to be.]

[aslandish]

[ It's not what he expects. Having been torn from his world the first time, one might think he would be more accustomed to being summoned thusly. The fact is, he's not -- it's still an alien feeling to be drawn to another place, any place without willing it himself. He remembers, though, and having said farewell to those in his own world after setting all to rights once more, he arrives, not with heaviness, but a lightness that is almost expectant.

Or at least, until he perceives what is roaming about the Port. Finding the thing is easy -- the shadow that has no right to that face or identity -- as its stench reaches to the very heavens. Streaking across the city, a beacon in a decaying world, he stops for nothing, his teeth bared the closer that he draws.

It's not the first time he's done so. The first night he roamed the city after sirens, he was forced to prove himself greater than the creatures dwelling in darkness. Later, in protecting others, there were moments when it was called for. In taking a stand with the children of heart against Xehanort's dark ambitions, he once again showed his might, the weight of fang and claw, and finally, in beating back the miasma, the overwhelming wrongness lurking beyond the fringes of this world, he gave his life to save a fallen angel and the rest of the city with him.

However, not once during his entire stay in the Port has something ever provoked him to anger.

Until now.

A terrible sound rips into the air, the earth itself shaking with it as a streak of light and thunder hurtles into view. He slams into the Thing, the demented fragment of a much greater whole, tearing at it furiously as he bears it to the ground. ]

[paterelohim]

[Chuck collapses like a rag doll, no time to register Aslan as his savior before he hits the ground hard and groans, head spinning.

The Shadow is roaring, fighting for its life against the Lion and honestly, having a very good chance of winning. Chuck rolls over with a pained groan, rubbing his head, before his vision resolves again and the fight comes into focus. When He realizes what's happening He's all instinct. He reaches a hand out towards them and concentrates on the door in His head, the door that holds back all His power and Might from like a dam separating God from man. He thinks on it hard, on how that door is cracked a little here, with the small uses of power - alcohol for the angels, pouring peace into Magneto's mind, knocking Lucifer unconscious, keeping the plants at home alive, keeping His own body from failing too quickly in this fight - and the power of the Shadow, whose strength can only match His own. He thinks about it then clenches his fist in midair, mentally wraps a hand around the Shadow's throat, and pulls them both hard through that Door and slams it shut behind them, closing off all more-than-human power where even Chuck can't get it.

Abruptly Chuck loses any Power he has and collapses hard, arms giving out under him, body suddenly losing blood even faster, damage from the spinal injury draining him until there's blackness creeping into the edges of His vision. He can't keep his body going any longer than a normal human, and how long Lucifer stays unconscious is up to pure luck and how close to death the angel is.

However, the Shadow loses strength too, though not as much. It's still reflecting the God in Chuck, so it has much more power than He does, but it's weakened enough for the Lion to take it.]

[aslandish]

[ It's a battle the likes of which has never been seen -- the Shadow of the Father fighting the One who could pass for his Son. The very air crackles with it, the magnitude of their conflict enough to destroy entire nations and worlds if only their focus was elsewhere. Tooth and nail, thunder and lightning, it makes no difference, the brightness of Creation sharp and deadly as the Lion rages against the aberration. His fur is singed, poisonous dark tearing at his mane, but he gives no thought to it. He knows what it is, the truth of the creature before him, and as scale of power tips in his favor, he rakes his claws across the monster's face and torso. The thing shrieks in rage and pain, an almost pitiable sound, before it withers away and flees.

He only watches it for a moment, just long enough to ensure it's truly gone. Satisfied it has no intention of returning, he darts to Chuck's side first and kisses his cheek, healing warmth spreading quickly from the point of contact. Once he's certain Chuck can sustain himself, he'll see to Lucifer as well. ]