With a nod to BSG and Starbuck's 8 minute summary
The story so far: the short and snarky version
Corat the Ofanite of Wind leaves cryptic messages in the seatbacks of planes for reasons he won't talk about. Turns out this is his idea of putting together a team. Mitchim the Seraph of Trade finds one of these notes but gets taunted by Pepito, an Impudite of Dark Humor who Corat thinks is small fry. How wrong can you be?
Mitchim follows Corat to the parking lot and finds out that the ditzy blond is just a body he borrows from the artist Alx, and that Corat is actually a ditzy bald. Corat gets a call from his Mercurian friend Rina-el even though he won't give her name out, and she says that there's going to be an angel summoning ritual in Anaheim at aGoth convention and that maybe he should check it out. Corat invited Mitchim along and they rope in Nain, a Bright Lilim of Destiny.
They get to the hotel where the summoning is supposed to take place and weasel their way inside. Well, Nain weasels, Corat just kind of barges. Rather than being challenged though the Goths just kind of ignore him and start their mojo. Maybe having notorious wiz Ryuki Watari nod hello to him helped. So the ritual is crap, the muy mysterioso Dark Man is just a has-been wiz who's letting something truly evil borrow his body every so often, and yet three angels have shown up--Corat, Mitchim, and Nain. Pepito thinks this is funny. Corat is freaking out because a couple of tough guys have blocked the door--really, you'd think an Air Marshall angel could take them. Nain thinks Ryuki is the bad guy and so breaks his little jar with a big sword. Somebody's got gender issues. Ryuki's pissed off and Mitchim points him at laughing boy. Corat escapes, Pepito is banished, and the guy whose body Nain was borrowing has to explain to the cops why he's carrying a sword and assaulting a little Asian guy with it.
Corat apparently got a chewing out from his boss because he's gone all mopey. Could be because his boss told him to recruit Seraphim, who he's never liked. Laurence sends one of his Seraphim and Corat likes this even less. They arrange to meet at a coffeehouse on Fairfax where some of the Goth kids recognize them and start asking rude questions. Corat swoops in and tells them everything all jokey, showing the Seraphim that he can spin the truth with the best of them. Rina-el shows up and gives hugs all around. Aaronebat, Elokite of Destiny is a Dr. Phil type and gets some info from the kids about Dark Man and his alter ego and why nobody messes with Ryuki. Shenmachel, Seraph of the Sword, gets all authoritarian with one of the kids and scares them off. This makes Corat uncomfortable and Rina-el hugs him, which he likes, and sits in Shenmachel's lap, which he doesn't like.
But they're starting to figure out that a lot of these folks are connected, and Nain and Rina-el promise themselves they'll stay in the Goth kids' lives to keep an eye out, and maybe save some souls along the way. Shenmachel asks Corat if this Ryuki knows that he's really an angel, and it seems he knows a hell of a lot more than that. When Corat calls him on the phone he says "Hey Corey, what's up?" So they decide to meet with the guy so they can use their wiggy angel powers on him, and Ryuki gets to meet actual angels in person. So really, who's swindling who here?
A warding/binding ritual takes 15 minutes to build, and the party gets to his suite in 14. Ryuki comes off all pretty manners but he's got a ward around the door and a set of katanas on the table, so he's no poofta. Neither is Aaronabat, playing Bad Cop very convincingly and straining the barefoot guy's nerves. Corat's just hanging out with Mitch, watching Good Cops Rina-el and Nain and Bad Cop Aaron, while Ryuki seems more interested in a duel of words with Shenmachel, though he's got a sword in his hand and he'd do that too. He gives the dish on Dark Man's buddy Gavin Russo but he's confused enough he can't give much. What, that's not a demon possessing Gavin? While he's talking philosophy he activates the ward, trying to be slick about it but that's not possible.
Corat's stuck in a room with a blocked door again and threatens to tear of Ryuki's limbs if he doesn't undo it. The two of them argue like an old married couple, and Aaron drops the Bad Cop act to sing C calm again. Shenmachel goes all soldier and accepts the invitation to see whether the ward will actually work, which it doesn't, although it does make an unpleasant noise, like Joe Satriani playing Mozart. Which is only really unpleasant if you're a purist for Mozart. Ryuki breaks the ward. C steals Ryuki's sushi and some of his little magic jars and lays him flat before they leave. Rina-el dumbstrikes Ryuki by letting him see her celestial good looks. Makes you wonder why he got involved with angels in the first place.
So a couple months later
It's All Soul's Night and the group is refreshed and regrouped at church or a strip club depending on their preference and peer pressure. While they're out they hear a terrific celestial disturbance and turn on the news. Some demons shot up a bunch of people at a cemetery, which is dumb and loud even for the demons in this town. The Corps will be on the way, Michael's kick-ass-and-take-names squad, and the party decides it's best to not make them look for them.
There's only one place in town that fits the description, so they go there. On the way Corat gets a text message from Ryuki from two time zones away saying "Did you hear that?", which is funny because even as loud as that was that's an awful lot of distance to cross. So they get to the soul food restaurant aka Eli's tether, and they get the Seneschal to give them the ground-level report. Just then The Corps shows up. One of them says "Hey Corat" and you're beginning to wonder who this guy doesn't know.
They're a rough bunch, and sniffing around the party like airport dogs, and they won't shake Nain's hand because she's a Lilim, however Bright. They dig out the fact that our Dark Man was there taking bullets like some guy in an action flick, but Rina-el misreads C's gesture to mean Don't Mention Ryuki, so they dig that out too. Just to f**k with them, they take C away and promise to look in on Ryuki among other people, and accept no arguments.
If they'd only put two and two together they might have guessed what happened next, as Corat would explain to them later. Yeah Ulysses was cheesed off that his old recruit's ladyfriends were all smitten over a sorcerer, but mostly he was there to get a job done. Getting the job done meant tracking down the baddies, and hazing Corat again was just fun. So they get Gavin Russo's address and go there first, figuring he's got to be their Dark Man. All of their interrogator's fawning attention however fails to uncover much, so they call an ambulance because the guy's actually been shot several times and moaning like a wuss. Soon as their backs are turned however he gets possessed by the Dark Man who startles Lupe, who is a Wheel (uber-fast) of the Sword (shiny sharp thing) and she whips his head off before he can say "boo-ya" and Gavin's dead, and six angels have to hear the boom of a mortal man murdered, because Dark Man had left the building.
So back at the restaurant Rina-el calls Ryuki and warns him there are some soldiers on the way, and after he wakes up some he calls her back from the office phone and tells her not to worry. Either he's really sweet or really fatalist. Rina-el confesses the phone call to Shenmachel and hopes he doesn't get all Swordy on her. He doesn't, but he has his own side conversation with Laurence who seems rather pucker-faced about the whole matter. Nain gets a moment with Yves and when he starts connecting the dots she worries that C is in more trouble than he realizes. Yves gets hold of Michael to share their theories, and Mike calls his Corps with an order that Corat is not to have contact with Pepito until further notice, for his own health. The Corps isn't happy about this because it means a bad guy is going to get away for a little while. They just check on Ryuki, apparently agreeing with Laurence that the less the kid sees of them the better. Ulysses is even less pleased when blocking the van door makes Corat all wiggy, because he knows C and knows Wheels and knows that isn't right. He sets Kyle to have a heart-to-heart and try to get to the bottom of this.
The party meets at Rina-el's garden apartment after all their little sidetrips, and realizes that Pepito's a whole lot bigger problem than Corat took him for. Shenmachel takes the lead and relays his orders on how to fix the situation. Corat checks in, says he's on the way back. He arrives with a photo of Gavin's altar as well as the story of how he died. Shenmachel's mind is on an SS dagger that someone had pawned off at Mitchim's shop, but Mitchim's mind has apparently been borrowed by the Archangel Marc, at least long enough to write a chart of who's connected to who. Leave it to Trade to produce something useful. Corat loans Mitchim the pistol that Atticus had loaned him for 'the coolest head' in the party.
Mitchim thinks the Dark Man is the Loa Baron Samedi. Rina-el thinks Samedi will go after Ryuki. Corat reminds them that Ryuki is an exorcist which might be handy in kicking Pepito out of his body. Shenmachel thinks you all talk about Ryuki too much, and he knows a priest who'll do the job without gouging them for it. They agree on that but not much else. Rina gets pissed, Corat gets snarky and pulls rank on Shenmachel with a big sloppy hug. He tells Shen if he has issues with him he needs to put them out there. He tries to bring Rina and Nain back in by being all Mr. Authority but he melts, and instead whispers something in Rina-el's ear. He'll be getting an earful on that later.
Shenmachel notes the exchange with some irritation but he's trying to be cool, and he compliments Corat on getting the demon into homeschooling i.e. away from other kids. Corat lets the 'Wheel' bit slide, because while it bugs him it is technically the correct title. His attempts to draw Shenmachel out fail however with the arrival of a new party member Zahira, Bright Lilim of Faith. Corat tries to keep things to business. Rina-el calls Shen "Mr. Pointy", which will get worse as the week progresses. Still, business right? Corat calls Pepito's mother Jen and finds out he's dating one of the Goth girls and hosting a party over at her house in Riverside. Rina-el is going to look into Pepito's brother Glen. Corat swears to Zahira, a recent convert from Hell, that the bickering is just details. Really. Trust me.
Three days later they reconvene at Corat's place where he tries to make peace again with Shenmachel. He's got a knickknack cabinet with a jade dragon on top of it, three guesses who gave him that. He's also got a little figurine of an angel on the back of a motorcycle (awwwwwww) and a piece of paper sticking out from between the doors that nobody seems to notice. We meet yet another member of the party, Da'at aka Professor Glen Norton.
The following Friday Corat has the crew meet at his place again. Da'at lets slip that Pepito has lost his bound-to-his-vessel discord and Corat goes out back to shoot things. He comes back less emo but more murderous. They put together a plan to exorcise Pepito and dose the vessel with C-provided Rohypnol. He leaves the keys to his place and goes off to do his Air Marshall bit.
Rina-el gets herself invited to Pepito's party, except Pepito's friends still haven't forgiven him for getting their buddy Sabath in the middle of a gang shootout, so they don't show. His brother Glen however gets talked into bringing his bacchanal friends in. Eliza, the girlfriend, is mortified. Her Goth cred is shot. Pepito tries to summon Baron Samedi but fails, so his cred is shot too. He's drugged the party goers though, and only his brother is smart enough to watch his drink for this. Rina-el calls Ash and Mitch who are masquerading as ambulance drivers, and they call some real ambulance drivers because the drugs are real. Pepito calls Kobal to try to keep the party from becoming a total loss.
Glen figures out that Pepito isn't really his brother and tries to beat the pulp out of him. Pepito makes a run for it but is stopped by Vato, his boss under Kobal. Vato is not amused, or maybe he is amused as he simply stands back and lets the angels do their thing. He tries to steer the conversation to How To Bring Down That Ofan but he can't do it without tipping his hand, so he settles for helping the angels get some other answers about Samedi. Then he takes off and lets the angels put the various people in the various ambulances.
So they take Pepito over to Corat's place where the exorcist is waiting. Now Mitch the Seraph told him if he cooperated they'd only kill his vessel and let his soul loose, and Mitch being a Seraph he believed him, but Mitch was wrong or maybe lied to. Handy that. So Pepito sees the exorcist circle and tries to writhe out of it but it's too late, they got him good. Shenmachel and your Swordie friend, meet Ash from Fire. He's a good guy. Rina and Da'at call Eliza's former boyfriend Jordan to come take care of her, and then they go to C's apartment to help. "Help." But before she leaves, Rina-el lets Eliza see her real self hoping this will help her see her destiny one of these days. Zahira's assisting the priest against the demon, and Shenmachel is selling Pepito time to live by the minute, i.e. the longer he talks the longer he lives. And talk he does, like a jailbird. He's still trying to bargain his way out of all this when Da'at lays it out for him--we don't care, and ain't no demon leaving this place. Zahira gives the kid a beer because he's at least over 18 even if he doesn't look it. He throws the beer mug at the priest after admitting he'd swindled Ryuki into helping with the angel summoning rite, and Rina-el realizes they all got taken. And it's on.
It's snakes and a dalmation vs. a gollum with a bad sense of humor, and it's no contest. The beatdown takes out all of his will and perception and most of his brains, not that he had much to start with, while leaving his body intact minus the slash Vato had given him earlier. So something slams back into Pepito's body but it isn't really Pepito, just that tiny bit of intelligence he had left. He isn't exactly drooling but he can't think much beyond the color of the grass and tits and beer, and even that he wouldn't know what to do with.
So an argument ensues, because Zahira thought she saw hope for redeeming his soul and Rina-el won't let go where there's hope. The priest's Sword assistant gets really irate and starts packing their bags. Rina-el and Shenmachel nearly go to blows, and Zahira takes the kid outside where he won't hear anything about angels and demons that might ruin his faith. They figure out what his prospects aren't, they figure out where Corat put the killing dose of Rohypnol, and now they have to figure out how to speak to one another long enough to make it happen. Arguing is talking right?
Well they stop arguing long enough to talk the Pepito-thing into an ambulance with the three guys and a spiked beer, two drugs so the dose is lethal and looks like it's from the party. They change the ambulance tire partway there to explain why he wasn't at anybody's apartment all this time either. Rina-el, Mitchim, and Zahira stay behind and cleans up the apartment, and Mitch swings back to help, and even Salla seems okay with everything before she goes.
Everybody goes off to lick their wounds for a week and talk to who they have to, when they get a message from Corat. Seems he has a boss Velga who's a complete ice queen but wants a progress report. Thanks for all your support, bitch. There's a Wind tether on board a commercial airliner, and Da'at on the way to the plane sees Corat talking to the pilot of the big silver bird. So he and Corat get talking, and Zahira joins in, and Marty the pilot realizes this is a private conversation and gives them some room. Da'at is an Elo like Velga only with much better manners, and he can push buttons like her too. So he's pushing Corat's buttons while waiting for Rina and Mitch to show up, and when they get there he's admitting he knows he has a Discord and Da'at's dragging out of him what it is and how he got it. And it's an ugly story, and Pepito wasn't kidding when he said Corat hated some guy but he couldn't have realized that guy might be two parts of a Triad. Rina-el wants to hug his tears away so badly, and he wants to be comforted so badly, but he's too much of a manly man to go for it. Tears sure because he's a convict, but because it never occurred to him that this team he's yanked around so much want to back him for an appeal.
So of course Velga calls and says to get their feathered butts on the plane. She sees them all walk in together and figures that's what she wants to know, they're a team by gum. Then she hands them some relics from Michael and Rina-el walks off, and they're not a team by gum and nobody knows what to say or where to go.
CONTINUED IN THIS ENTRY
Corat the Ofanite of Wind leaves cryptic messages in the seatbacks of planes for reasons he won't talk about. Turns out this is his idea of putting together a team. Mitchim the Seraph of Trade finds one of these notes but gets taunted by Pepito, an Impudite of Dark Humor who Corat thinks is small fry. How wrong can you be?
Mitchim follows Corat to the parking lot and finds out that the ditzy blond is just a body he borrows from the artist Alx, and that Corat is actually a ditzy bald. Corat gets a call from his Mercurian friend Rina-el even though he won't give her name out, and she says that there's going to be an angel summoning ritual in Anaheim at aGoth convention and that maybe he should check it out. Corat invited Mitchim along and they rope in Nain, a Bright Lilim of Destiny.
They get to the hotel where the summoning is supposed to take place and weasel their way inside. Well, Nain weasels, Corat just kind of barges. Rather than being challenged though the Goths just kind of ignore him and start their mojo. Maybe having notorious wiz Ryuki Watari nod hello to him helped. So the ritual is crap, the muy mysterioso Dark Man is just a has-been wiz who's letting something truly evil borrow his body every so often, and yet three angels have shown up--Corat, Mitchim, and Nain. Pepito thinks this is funny. Corat is freaking out because a couple of tough guys have blocked the door--really, you'd think an Air Marshall angel could take them. Nain thinks Ryuki is the bad guy and so breaks his little jar with a big sword. Somebody's got gender issues. Ryuki's pissed off and Mitchim points him at laughing boy. Corat escapes, Pepito is banished, and the guy whose body Nain was borrowing has to explain to the cops why he's carrying a sword and assaulting a little Asian guy with it.
Corat apparently got a chewing out from his boss because he's gone all mopey. Could be because his boss told him to recruit Seraphim, who he's never liked. Laurence sends one of his Seraphim and Corat likes this even less. They arrange to meet at a coffeehouse on Fairfax where some of the Goth kids recognize them and start asking rude questions. Corat swoops in and tells them everything all jokey, showing the Seraphim that he can spin the truth with the best of them. Rina-el shows up and gives hugs all around. Aaronebat, Elokite of Destiny is a Dr. Phil type and gets some info from the kids about Dark Man and his alter ego and why nobody messes with Ryuki. Shenmachel, Seraph of the Sword, gets all authoritarian with one of the kids and scares them off. This makes Corat uncomfortable and Rina-el hugs him, which he likes, and sits in Shenmachel's lap, which he doesn't like.
But they're starting to figure out that a lot of these folks are connected, and Nain and Rina-el promise themselves they'll stay in the Goth kids' lives to keep an eye out, and maybe save some souls along the way. Shenmachel asks Corat if this Ryuki knows that he's really an angel, and it seems he knows a hell of a lot more than that. When Corat calls him on the phone he says "Hey Corey, what's up?" So they decide to meet with the guy so they can use their wiggy angel powers on him, and Ryuki gets to meet actual angels in person. So really, who's swindling who here?
A warding/binding ritual takes 15 minutes to build, and the party gets to his suite in 14. Ryuki comes off all pretty manners but he's got a ward around the door and a set of katanas on the table, so he's no poofta. Neither is Aaronabat, playing Bad Cop very convincingly and straining the barefoot guy's nerves. Corat's just hanging out with Mitch, watching Good Cops Rina-el and Nain and Bad Cop Aaron, while Ryuki seems more interested in a duel of words with Shenmachel, though he's got a sword in his hand and he'd do that too. He gives the dish on Dark Man's buddy Gavin Russo but he's confused enough he can't give much. What, that's not a demon possessing Gavin? While he's talking philosophy he activates the ward, trying to be slick about it but that's not possible.
Corat's stuck in a room with a blocked door again and threatens to tear of Ryuki's limbs if he doesn't undo it. The two of them argue like an old married couple, and Aaron drops the Bad Cop act to sing C calm again. Shenmachel goes all soldier and accepts the invitation to see whether the ward will actually work, which it doesn't, although it does make an unpleasant noise, like Joe Satriani playing Mozart. Which is only really unpleasant if you're a purist for Mozart. Ryuki breaks the ward. C steals Ryuki's sushi and some of his little magic jars and lays him flat before they leave. Rina-el dumbstrikes Ryuki by letting him see her celestial good looks. Makes you wonder why he got involved with angels in the first place.
So a couple months later
It's All Soul's Night and the group is refreshed and regrouped at church or a strip club depending on their preference and peer pressure. While they're out they hear a terrific celestial disturbance and turn on the news. Some demons shot up a bunch of people at a cemetery, which is dumb and loud even for the demons in this town. The Corps will be on the way, Michael's kick-ass-and-take-names squad, and the party decides it's best to not make them look for them.
There's only one place in town that fits the description, so they go there. On the way Corat gets a text message from Ryuki from two time zones away saying "Did you hear that?", which is funny because even as loud as that was that's an awful lot of distance to cross. So they get to the soul food restaurant aka Eli's tether, and they get the Seneschal to give them the ground-level report. Just then The Corps shows up. One of them says "Hey Corat" and you're beginning to wonder who this guy doesn't know.
They're a rough bunch, and sniffing around the party like airport dogs, and they won't shake Nain's hand because she's a Lilim, however Bright. They dig out the fact that our Dark Man was there taking bullets like some guy in an action flick, but Rina-el misreads C's gesture to mean Don't Mention Ryuki, so they dig that out too. Just to f**k with them, they take C away and promise to look in on Ryuki among other people, and accept no arguments.
If they'd only put two and two together they might have guessed what happened next, as Corat would explain to them later. Yeah Ulysses was cheesed off that his old recruit's ladyfriends were all smitten over a sorcerer, but mostly he was there to get a job done. Getting the job done meant tracking down the baddies, and hazing Corat again was just fun. So they get Gavin Russo's address and go there first, figuring he's got to be their Dark Man. All of their interrogator's fawning attention however fails to uncover much, so they call an ambulance because the guy's actually been shot several times and moaning like a wuss. Soon as their backs are turned however he gets possessed by the Dark Man who startles Lupe, who is a Wheel (uber-fast) of the Sword (shiny sharp thing) and she whips his head off before he can say "boo-ya" and Gavin's dead, and six angels have to hear the boom of a mortal man murdered, because Dark Man had left the building.
So back at the restaurant Rina-el calls Ryuki and warns him there are some soldiers on the way, and after he wakes up some he calls her back from the office phone and tells her not to worry. Either he's really sweet or really fatalist. Rina-el confesses the phone call to Shenmachel and hopes he doesn't get all Swordy on her. He doesn't, but he has his own side conversation with Laurence who seems rather pucker-faced about the whole matter. Nain gets a moment with Yves and when he starts connecting the dots she worries that C is in more trouble than he realizes. Yves gets hold of Michael to share their theories, and Mike calls his Corps with an order that Corat is not to have contact with Pepito until further notice, for his own health. The Corps isn't happy about this because it means a bad guy is going to get away for a little while. They just check on Ryuki, apparently agreeing with Laurence that the less the kid sees of them the better. Ulysses is even less pleased when blocking the van door makes Corat all wiggy, because he knows C and knows Wheels and knows that isn't right. He sets Kyle to have a heart-to-heart and try to get to the bottom of this.
The party meets at Rina-el's garden apartment after all their little sidetrips, and realizes that Pepito's a whole lot bigger problem than Corat took him for. Shenmachel takes the lead and relays his orders on how to fix the situation. Corat checks in, says he's on the way back. He arrives with a photo of Gavin's altar as well as the story of how he died. Shenmachel's mind is on an SS dagger that someone had pawned off at Mitchim's shop, but Mitchim's mind has apparently been borrowed by the Archangel Marc, at least long enough to write a chart of who's connected to who. Leave it to Trade to produce something useful. Corat loans Mitchim the pistol that Atticus had loaned him for 'the coolest head' in the party.
Mitchim thinks the Dark Man is the Loa Baron Samedi. Rina-el thinks Samedi will go after Ryuki. Corat reminds them that Ryuki is an exorcist which might be handy in kicking Pepito out of his body. Shenmachel thinks you all talk about Ryuki too much, and he knows a priest who'll do the job without gouging them for it. They agree on that but not much else. Rina gets pissed, Corat gets snarky and pulls rank on Shenmachel with a big sloppy hug. He tells Shen if he has issues with him he needs to put them out there. He tries to bring Rina and Nain back in by being all Mr. Authority but he melts, and instead whispers something in Rina-el's ear. He'll be getting an earful on that later.
Shenmachel notes the exchange with some irritation but he's trying to be cool, and he compliments Corat on getting the demon into homeschooling i.e. away from other kids. Corat lets the 'Wheel' bit slide, because while it bugs him it is technically the correct title. His attempts to draw Shenmachel out fail however with the arrival of a new party member Zahira, Bright Lilim of Faith. Corat tries to keep things to business. Rina-el calls Shen "Mr. Pointy", which will get worse as the week progresses. Still, business right? Corat calls Pepito's mother Jen and finds out he's dating one of the Goth girls and hosting a party over at her house in Riverside. Rina-el is going to look into Pepito's brother Glen. Corat swears to Zahira, a recent convert from Hell, that the bickering is just details. Really. Trust me.
Three days later they reconvene at Corat's place where he tries to make peace again with Shenmachel. He's got a knickknack cabinet with a jade dragon on top of it, three guesses who gave him that. He's also got a little figurine of an angel on the back of a motorcycle (awwwwwww) and a piece of paper sticking out from between the doors that nobody seems to notice. We meet yet another member of the party, Da'at aka Professor Glen Norton.
The following Friday Corat has the crew meet at his place again. Da'at lets slip that Pepito has lost his bound-to-his-vessel discord and Corat goes out back to shoot things. He comes back less emo but more murderous. They put together a plan to exorcise Pepito and dose the vessel with C-provided Rohypnol. He leaves the keys to his place and goes off to do his Air Marshall bit.
Rina-el gets herself invited to Pepito's party, except Pepito's friends still haven't forgiven him for getting their buddy Sabath in the middle of a gang shootout, so they don't show. His brother Glen however gets talked into bringing his bacchanal friends in. Eliza, the girlfriend, is mortified. Her Goth cred is shot. Pepito tries to summon Baron Samedi but fails, so his cred is shot too. He's drugged the party goers though, and only his brother is smart enough to watch his drink for this. Rina-el calls Ash and Mitch who are masquerading as ambulance drivers, and they call some real ambulance drivers because the drugs are real. Pepito calls Kobal to try to keep the party from becoming a total loss.
Glen figures out that Pepito isn't really his brother and tries to beat the pulp out of him. Pepito makes a run for it but is stopped by Vato, his boss under Kobal. Vato is not amused, or maybe he is amused as he simply stands back and lets the angels do their thing. He tries to steer the conversation to How To Bring Down That Ofan but he can't do it without tipping his hand, so he settles for helping the angels get some other answers about Samedi. Then he takes off and lets the angels put the various people in the various ambulances.
So they take Pepito over to Corat's place where the exorcist is waiting. Now Mitch the Seraph told him if he cooperated they'd only kill his vessel and let his soul loose, and Mitch being a Seraph he believed him, but Mitch was wrong or maybe lied to. Handy that. So Pepito sees the exorcist circle and tries to writhe out of it but it's too late, they got him good. Shenmachel and your Swordie friend, meet Ash from Fire. He's a good guy. Rina and Da'at call Eliza's former boyfriend Jordan to come take care of her, and then they go to C's apartment to help. "Help." But before she leaves, Rina-el lets Eliza see her real self hoping this will help her see her destiny one of these days. Zahira's assisting the priest against the demon, and Shenmachel is selling Pepito time to live by the minute, i.e. the longer he talks the longer he lives. And talk he does, like a jailbird. He's still trying to bargain his way out of all this when Da'at lays it out for him--we don't care, and ain't no demon leaving this place. Zahira gives the kid a beer because he's at least over 18 even if he doesn't look it. He throws the beer mug at the priest after admitting he'd swindled Ryuki into helping with the angel summoning rite, and Rina-el realizes they all got taken. And it's on.
It's snakes and a dalmation vs. a gollum with a bad sense of humor, and it's no contest. The beatdown takes out all of his will and perception and most of his brains, not that he had much to start with, while leaving his body intact minus the slash Vato had given him earlier. So something slams back into Pepito's body but it isn't really Pepito, just that tiny bit of intelligence he had left. He isn't exactly drooling but he can't think much beyond the color of the grass and tits and beer, and even that he wouldn't know what to do with.
So an argument ensues, because Zahira thought she saw hope for redeeming his soul and Rina-el won't let go where there's hope. The priest's Sword assistant gets really irate and starts packing their bags. Rina-el and Shenmachel nearly go to blows, and Zahira takes the kid outside where he won't hear anything about angels and demons that might ruin his faith. They figure out what his prospects aren't, they figure out where Corat put the killing dose of Rohypnol, and now they have to figure out how to speak to one another long enough to make it happen. Arguing is talking right?
Well they stop arguing long enough to talk the Pepito-thing into an ambulance with the three guys and a spiked beer, two drugs so the dose is lethal and looks like it's from the party. They change the ambulance tire partway there to explain why he wasn't at anybody's apartment all this time either. Rina-el, Mitchim, and Zahira stay behind and cleans up the apartment, and Mitch swings back to help, and even Salla seems okay with everything before she goes.
Everybody goes off to lick their wounds for a week and talk to who they have to, when they get a message from Corat. Seems he has a boss Velga who's a complete ice queen but wants a progress report. Thanks for all your support, bitch. There's a Wind tether on board a commercial airliner, and Da'at on the way to the plane sees Corat talking to the pilot of the big silver bird. So he and Corat get talking, and Zahira joins in, and Marty the pilot realizes this is a private conversation and gives them some room. Da'at is an Elo like Velga only with much better manners, and he can push buttons like her too. So he's pushing Corat's buttons while waiting for Rina and Mitch to show up, and when they get there he's admitting he knows he has a Discord and Da'at's dragging out of him what it is and how he got it. And it's an ugly story, and Pepito wasn't kidding when he said Corat hated some guy but he couldn't have realized that guy might be two parts of a Triad. Rina-el wants to hug his tears away so badly, and he wants to be comforted so badly, but he's too much of a manly man to go for it. Tears sure because he's a convict, but because it never occurred to him that this team he's yanked around so much want to back him for an appeal.
So of course Velga calls and says to get their feathered butts on the plane. She sees them all walk in together and figures that's what she wants to know, they're a team by gum. Then she hands them some relics from Michael and Rina-el walks off, and they're not a team by gum and nobody knows what to say or where to go.
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