Alma and Dante Pt. 2

-*- vermilionVanquisher Ohhh, boy, was he ever gonna sleep when he...actually found a hotel. It was a bad start to a mission that he already hated. Missing persons cases always sort of set him on edge -- it wasn't just demon slaying, werewolf tracking, undead feline taming. It was humans involved -- maybe living, maybe not, but humans or their remains that he had to turn up.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Sure, he only took cases where there were definite signs of the supernatural being involved, but...even so, something about the whole thing felt wrong. Made him tense, ready to get it done, pack it in, and go home. Even the ones where it turned out the missing person was unharmed -- it left a bad taste in his mouth.
-*- vermilionVanquisher And now all of this? Almost getting blown up, saved by an assassin hunting mobsters -- and that assassin far too familiar for comfort. Little things and tones that struck him sharply. Familiar things that set his hands trembling.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Yeah. He was sick of it already.
-*- vermilionVanquisher That was probably what sent him hurrying back to that Alma girl -- anything to focus on, to get him where he needed to go. Nevermind that he'd had the solution to his case thrown in his face.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Dead bodies wouldn't get impatient, for sure.
-*- undyingGrace Oh this was brilliant! She didn't like it either to be honest, her father taught her strict conduct codes, and this was not following such codes of conducts. Humans should not get involved no matter what, especially when the Laguna are involved.  The Angels don't care if a person worships them, they have slaughtered humans before, and that's why it really
-*- undyingGrace irritated her to see this sort of blind worshiping. The Vigridians were blind, she knew it to be true. Pulling out her Umbran Watch she sighed, it will be a long night for her.  She needs those halos in order to get to the Umbran Archives.  If the information given to her is proven to be false heads will roll, and literally speaking.
-*- undyingGrace Narccius was a coward, he knows as well as she does he couldn't stand a chance in a fight, that's why Alma had the minor demon of vanity wrapped around a leather clad finger.
* Starting query with undyingGrace
* Starting query with undyingGrace
* Starting query with undyingGrace
-*- undyingGrace It was absurd, if it wasn't for the fact she needed a way to break the hold Nero Angelo has on her father, she'll pay the five hundred thousand Halos.
-*- vermilionVanquisher "hey, doll!" The drawl came out long -- daahll, the way it always did with his accent. He was silently grateful she didn't just hang him out to dry, back there -- couldn't really expect her to know the building was gonna blow up under his feet, of course, but she'd stuck in the area rather than abandoning him to rot entirely.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Nevermind that it hadn't, most likely, been her intent to stick around for his sorry ass.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Whatever.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Details.
-*- vermilionVanquisher "y'alright? i get th'feelin' we better clear out fast if we don't want too many questions asked. police, y'know? like t'pry. i tell 'em i'm not interested, but they jus' won't take no f'an answer..." He threw his arms up. "guess i can't blame 'em, but still, sorta inconvenient."
-*- undyingGrace An eyebrow was raised "Hm?" she asked, her English accent was defined.  Her attitude may seem forceful but in reality she has a protective instinct, but it comes with being a lingering thought. If she was anyone else she would leave the red clad man but again, she wasn't raised that way. "Right, our antics have caused more than a small disturbance,"
-*- undyingGrace She still had that Beloved to hunt down.  It was better to find an Angel than it finding you, for a few reasons, it means a better chance of not getting beaten senseless if caught off guard.
* Starting query with undyingGrace
-*- undyingGrace "Shall we?"
-*- vermilionVanquisher "indeed we shall!" Dante grinned, offering his arm exaggeratedly before starting away from the general vicinity of the. You know. Scattered Angel bodies, and the explosion. "y'said y'got a job t'do, was it?" Finding an information bank that may contain something to help her free her father from...being bound to a demon. Right.
-*- vermilionVanquisher The thought of it left him feeling cold, dread and uneasiness clumping in his stomach. And he couldn't leave it alone if he tried. Not with that sketch she'd showed him in mind.
-*- vermilionVanquisher He wasn't going to ask about it, of course. Just. Just make sure it wasn't. Couldn't be, right?
-*- undyingGrace She wraps her own arm in the crook. "I have to slay enough angels to gather five hundred thousand halos, then I'll use the Halos to get my client to talk about what he knows of the ancient Umbran Archives. The Umbrans are bound by a pact to their patrons, so maybe I can find something that does the opposite, to break a bond," she explains. Her grey-blue -
-*- undyingGrace eyes closed.  She couldn't stand idly, something needs to be done. "My client is a cowardly thing if he lied about knowing about the Archives, then there's blood to pay,"
* Starting query with undyingGrace
-*- vermilionVanquisher Oh -- he. Didn't actually expect her to take it. Not many people did, dismissing it with amusement or disdain.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Ah, well. He didn't mind.
-*- vermilionVanquisher He didn't say anything, for a moment. She had a right to feel like that, probably -- this was her dad's fate, after all. To be bound to a demon forever or to be freed of that torture. Not the kind of thing anybody should fuck around with.
-*- vermilionVanquisher ...Could hear sirens in the distance. (He was frankly surprised they even had them, out here in this bizarro city.) Better move a little faster.
-*- vermilionVanquisher "...sounds like a stretch," he advised slowly, grimly. "demons are a little different from humans, y'know? real vicious bindin' pacts. lotta th'time, it's a blood in, blood out kinda thing."
-*- vermilionVanquisher God, that felt awful to say. Foreign and bitter. Made him want to grimace.
-*- vermilionVanquisher "...but hey, if he's chargin' y'that much f'it, might be th'real deal. authentic stuff don't go cheap." Of course, it...could also mean it was bullshit and he wanted to milk every last drop. But she didn't need to know that. "how many halos y'have right now?"
-*- undyingGrace "My father is barely considered human by these modern standards, he has a heart, but it's too frosted over to really tell," she mutters. "I'm not even at the halfway mark, I have fifty thousand halos, I also have an Angelic Hymn LP for Rodin so I can get a new weapon so I need even more to get the information and new equipment," she added.  She heard -
-*- undyingGrace that Rodin has a new design waiting. With the LP he could draw out the needed demon to power the weapon.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Sounded like she was flat broke compared to where she needed to be -- out on her own and thinly scraping by, making it on willpower alone. Sure, she was a little gruffer than he'd ever been, but it reminded him of himself -- his situation, at least, just past ten years ago. White hair and everything, too.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Something about her attitude reminded him, sharply, of the...other face he saw when he looked in the mirror.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Heh.
-*- vermilionVanquisher Heheheheh. Couldn't really help but to laugh. He even made it ring mostly genuine.
-*- vermilionVanquisher "well, heheh, sounds like y'need a li'l help." He grinned. "halos, huh? 'm sure i could pitch in a few 'fore i gotta head home. these things y'hunt -- angels. i haven't seen much of'm, out in my neck of th'woods. y'wanna explain a little about 'em?"
-*- vermilionVanquisher Frankly, to him, they just sounded like demons under a spiffy new label with a shiny new skin, 'specially taking into account the carnage they'd just left behind, half of it caused by the things.
-*- undyingGrace|cybridCourage "The Hierarchy of Laguna are Paradiso's foot soldiers, they listen to Jubileus the one who reigns over the highest layer of the Realities.  They say eons ago there was one reality unified under her, but then a cataclysmic event tore that apart, creating a trio of worlds, one of light, one of chaos, and one of darkness," she explained. "In the events of -
-*- undyingGrace|cybridCourage the First Armageddon, Queen Sheba was born from the resulting darkness and cast down into Inferno, while Jubileus was forced to rule Paradiso. The chaos was set into Purgatorio. If Jubileus was to ever be awakened it would reunify the Realities and doom the humans as well as demons,"
<undyingGrace|cybridCourage> "That's where the Ancient Clans come into play, the Lumen Sages, wielders of light, sun worshipers linked to Paradiso, and the Umbra Witches,  dark arts masters, and linked to the Moon and Inferno.  They oversaw history in harmony until the Clan Wars where the Lumen were wiped out, a sole survivor remained and urged fearful humans to hunt down the Umbra in -
<undyingGrace|cybridCourage> the bloodiest chapter in history, the Witch Hunts.  Both clans are extinct, and there is no records of either to be found until now,"
<undyingGrace|cybridCourage> "The Witch Hunts spared few, two original Umbrans remain,"
-*- vermilionVanquisher Oh.
-*- vermilionVanquisher He'd heard a lot of legends about how that shit went down around the mass darkness that supposedly existed as reality before the human and demonic realms split. Had always been more Verge's thing to pay attention to than his, but he knew the basics well enough to know this legend went a little differently. Focused a lot more on the supposed angelic realm. Interesting, he guessed.
-*- vermilionVanquisher "gotcha. so these guys run around, killin' n' wreckin' shit?" Sounded like demons under a different label, indeed.
-*- undyingGrace|cybridCourage "No they hear the prayers of their worshipers, but they are not obliged to help humans as they are believed to do, they attack beings like myself or anything that is not meant to be,"
<undyingGrace|cybridCourage> "Such that falls under the latter category is beings of light and dark combined, my father has a son that is born from such a union. The angels are unaware of my brother's existence but.. such moments are fleeting,"