Night 57: The Coliseum

[el_aguila]

Touching the sandy grounds of the coliseum was a catalyst, and the progression of day did not mean the end of the process. By fortune or otherwise, this group's efforts were not allowed to halt simply due to the rising sun. Therefore, when nighttime was pronounced, those who had undergone the beginnings of an incomplete trial were pulled from their

Comments

ARENA

[witchdetective]

[ from here ]

Really, Erika was growing tired of the constant teleporting and randomly showing up in a new place. Did the door even open? She couldn't remember, only that their lights suddenly turned off and they were plunged into darkness. The darkness soon faded away to another scene, one that Erika had not been expecting at all. She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the sudden bright light that flooded the room, unable to make out her surroundings until the spots finally faded from her vision. What she saw was... interesting, to say the least. She saw the sandy floor before anything else, and to the right and left of her, seats. She was on one side of what looked like an arena of some sort, with a line drawn in the middle separating her and someone else on the other side. Someone else who Erika quickly recognized as Noah, which made perfect sense considering how they were the two who offered blood

[affictitious]

It was saying a lot that there was something more interesting in their change of locale besides the unwarranted teleportation. Gladiator room. Check. No lions, but the line drawn in the middle of the sand was a clear indicator about what, exactly, was supposed to happen.

More interesting? Exactly like the night before, his body had become heavier, burdened with the weight of a grace. Not that anyone else in the room was particularly privy to it, but his wings were back where they belonged, unfurled and unclipped. It was like being uncircumcised again. Refreshing. (Or so he assumed.) Gabriel could feel the grace, the light, his personal power flowing back into his fingertips. Just to make sure, he rubbed two fingers together, feeling sand fall from them. Sand he had made himself.

There was a difference between the power now and the power from before. The difference? He didn't feel as he should not. There wasn't that tugging in his mind, telling him to stay here and go there. There didn't seem to be any strings guiding him, but

[witchdetective]

Well, Erika wasn't quite expecting to see Noah stay silent like this. Nothing to say? She did notice some sand fall to the ground from his fingers, but where did he get that? He must have examined the floor when she wasn't looking... Perhaps. She did look away from him, so there was a moment he could have done that. It seemed strange to overanalyze this and waste her detective's authority on such a scene, but at the same time, Erika's habits were kicking into overdrive and she gave the man another cautious look before turning her attention back towards the man sitting above of them. He started to speak, finally introducing himself.

[ turning her attention here ]

this is where i disgrace erika for all of eternity. (yay)

[witchdetective]

[ and coming back from here ]Since this man had no idea who he was dealing with, Erika was willing to forgive him for his disrespect. The disrespect for now, not what happened at the Sphinx. He was going to pay dearly for that. Of course, the most obvious argument against him was pointing out the fact that he didn't act anything like an angel. He must have heard that one a lot, so it probably annoyed him. A good move, but since it was one that he expected, Erika knew she was going to have to go at it from another angle

I'm ok with this.

[affictitious]

If there had ever been someone who should never have been picked to defend Heaven, it was Gabriel. He'd abandoned his home as he had abandoned his family, too weak to fight and too tired to act as mediator. Unlike his brothers, he was not a warrior. He had never been designed by his Creator for that purpose.

The Creator, huh? It always came back to Him. The One who didn't interfere. Who helped those who helped themselves. That hadn't done a lot of good for either Lucifer or Michael, had it? And here was the kicker: it was all coming back to fry his ass all over again. Karma, ironically. He couldn't escape it once, and he wouldn't be able to do it now. Now it was worse. Now humanity was involved in a way much, much more personal.

And boy. You could insult the Father - He had to know he deserved it - but there were only so many lines that someone could cross with Gabriel. This girl had decided to cut it in half

ohhhh it is on like donkey kong /snap snap snap

[witchdetective]

This was not the reaction Erika was expecting. The blade appearing suddenly in his hands was something she didn't care about; it was natural that Gabriel would arm himself in a logic battle. In fact, she could probably compare it to that damnable golden sword that Battler wielded (who had even heard of gold truth?), but it was Gabriel's reactions that made Erika focus, her eyes narrowing as he insulted her. She was burning with the desire to correct him, that she was using the blade granted to her by her Master, but more importantly, she was wondering where this tangent about death was coming from. No, it was that Gabriel was admitting that he "died", therefore, he was trapped in this place. It was a strange sort of admission, and it might have made sense for a regular man. People die when they are killed and all of that nonsense

GURRRRRL

[affictitious]

"It wasn't an assumption, chickadee. No one touches Death's weapon but him. I said it was an imitation." God, kids these days couldn't focus on a conversation unless it was about themselves.

Gabriel watched the stakes - what the hell was all this? - but didn't move. The Old Man better had been watching this shit with a tub of popcorn and five dollars on him, because this was probably the kind of crap he would set up. Gabriel wasn't like Lucifer - not in every way - and he had once been a dutiful son. He probably still would be if God hadn't been the first official deadbeat Father. He hadn't ever disobeyed. Ever.

Wrong way to think. This wasn't for anyone but himself. And boy, was he gonna have a hell of a time with this girl once her ten minutes were up

IS THIS BITCH FOR REAL? SYNC, HOLD MY PURSE.

[witchdetective]

Erika couldn't help but be a little irritated at how... easily Gabriel was slinging her statements back at her, without the red or even his own blue truths. It was a very one-sided battle, a sort of battle that Erika wasn't really used to but nevertheless had to be prepared for. She couldn't call herself a first rate detective if she couldn't even destroy a farce as stupid as this. Yet it was obvious that she wasn't accomplishing anything, and she was kindly reminded of the time she was wasting with another slash of pain that hit Erika in the abdomen, the detective gritting her teeth as the skin ripped. She was looking quite bloody now, when the man before her wasn't even doing anything.

"Tch, so that just means your post died with you..." But Erika wasn't going to bother using that as the basis of her claim that Gabriel didn't exist. Maybe not in whatever sorry Fragment he came from, but here, he existed, and she was doing a piss-poor job of trying to disprove it. Doing her best to ignore the pain, Erika closed her eyes and focused

AND I THREW ERIKA'S SHIT TO THE GROOOOUND.

[affictitious]

"I thought so too," he said, mostly because he had no idea what the hell she was going on about and the more time he wasted talking, the more time he could get to the real meat of this whole thing. His tactic was basically refuting whatever blue words (he was pretty sure the color of words didn't matter unless she came from a world where conversations were like a beat boxing match with a Simon Says machine, which admittedly sounded like a pretty awesome idea) she threw at him. The idea of a human trying to prove he didn't exist when he was standing right here was amusing to him. You know, except it was amusement piled on top of layers and layers of stale, moldy hatred.

Only a few minutes left by now.

He hadn't missed the fact that the damage he should have taken was going to Castiel, and the girl's went to herself. The light of his brother's Grace kept scratching at the archangel's attention, a power that was probing and familiar. It'd been a while since he had been around another angel. Pagans just didn't have the same flareShe

IT'S SO INTENSE

[witchdetective]

The snap of Gabriel's fingers seemed to echo across the whole arena, making Erika tense with expectation. What kind of stupid parlor trick was she going to have to go against? If it was anything like Beatrice's magic, and she knew it was going to be, then Erika was going to look forward to thoroughly crushing it. Her ugly grin only grew when nothing happened afterwards, yet she looked as if she was expecting that. Of course, asking a human for a miracle was going to result in nothing.

"Just as I thought. Your pitiful -It was then that Erika was treated to the most peculiar sight in her life. Instead of the whirlwind of blue that usually surrounded her when she made her claim, the words escaped and shot into the air, trailing behind a star and sparkles. The text itself was nothing of what she said, but rather a message written in the most hideous, gaudy rainbow coloring she had ever seen in her life. It was a message from Gabriel, Erika could note, but she did nothing else as she watched the words fade away, leaving her silent. And

ROUND 2, FIGHT.

[el_aguila]

All things considered, the Eagle despised these sorts of battles. A match based upon the nature of being and the intricacies of existence was no different than playing god. Of course, their attempts here could be labeled in the same category; however, the difference between their efforts and a mock court system was that in the end, the first had a purpose, one used to better a situation. What the detective and the archangel were playing at was more or less existential showmanship. The purpose was arrogance, and on principle, Aguilar found arrogance to be quite crass

Your soul is mine, etc. etc.

[affictitious]

To him, Erika's rage might as well have been a baby's after he'd stolen their candy. (Not that he was shallow enough to try something so positively immature. Please. He had standards.) He was hardly interested in revenge no - okay, that was a horrible, horrible lie and he couldn't even make it in his head. When his head snapped back to his brother's body ripping open again, Gabriel's face went cold. He had seen Castiel's form, as faint as it was, once his power had returned to him. His true face, hardly describable in any human language, shuddering and caged in his pathetic human form.

Then it flickered, the wings straining, turning black.

His jaw was clenched hard enough to crack teeth once he was facing Erika again, directly flying in front of her. Flying for angels was something that wasn't meant to be seen by mortal eyes; if anything, it was as if he'd teleported directly in front of her, leaving his angelic blade far behind him, still sticking in the sand.

"You don't mess with the Host, Erika." It was the first time he had

OMG I'M SORRY I DIDN'T NOTICE THIS LOL

[witchdetective]

Even though anyone should have been able to tell that Erika just made a horrible mistake... The girl herself held her ground, not even flinching when she saw the look on Gabriel's face. It really was an ugly face, but to a girl who constantly traded that sort of look with fellow witches, she might have thought that it was nothing she hadn't seen before. Still, she was a human detective before she was a witch, so even Erika couldn't hide her surprise when Gabriel immediately went on the offensive; to be honest, she did not foresee this move. That was because Erika, for all her bragging, had failed to grasp the situation completely. She had truly failed to realize that there was nothing to disprove, and she had foolishly thrown away her chance at victory