A Dishonored Demigod

Clipping the Angel's Wings

Empathy drops the woman from his mouth and immediately curls his body around her spear,"So rude. Be grateful I took you away from my master."
He gets no response from the Magdalena and has to maneuver his body once more to avoid the blessed spear that tries to shatter his body,"Really! Whoever taught you clearly didn't emphasize the idea of gratitude!"
He lands on all fours and braces himself while breathing in,"Know that I take no pleasure in this."
He expels a breath of icy air that washes over the woman and freezes the wall behind her. His mouth closes with wisps of vapor curling from his nostrils,"I take no pride in killing women."
"Well then, you needn't worry about me!"
A spear point smacks him away from the Magdalena before he recovers and takes to the air once more,"I can see that. Tell me, supposed descendant of Christ, where are your handlers?"
The icy vapor clears to show the woman standing in her original spot with her spear pointed towards Empathy,"Those old fools of the church have no control over me!"
She thrusts forward but Empathy uses the crystal on the end of his tail to knock the blade away from him,"Then why are you allied with the Angelus? Has my master ever dealt you a wrong?"
The Magdalena frowns,"No. Still, one life where the Darkness host hasn't sought to destroy the Magdalena doesn't make up for my dead ancestors!"
Two yellow lights stare at her before the dragon sighs,"You are naive. Do you truly believe that my master's ancestors sought out your descendants? On the contrary, it was the opposite. The men who were a part of the church sent your ancestors to their graves."
The woman's eyes narrow while her spear is covered in a gold aurora,"You lie!"
Empathy shakes his head sadly,"I can feel your emotions swelling up. You feel anger towards my master and doubt my words, and yet you know what I speak is the truth."
He shatters and reforms in front of the woman to glare at her with his yellow eyes,"That wasn't nice."
The spear lodged in the wall behind him starts to freeze from Empathy's power,"I was simply trying to help you and hopefully make you see reason. However," and a clear bubble surrounds his body,"I can see that will be a waste of time!"
He slams into the woman and the air behind her cracks before she stumbles back with a hand over her mouth. She reaches and pulls her hand away just in time for a mouthful of blood to explode from her mouth. Empathy just stares at her,"That was you liver. One more hit and it'll be nothing more than paste. Don't provoke me to anger, woman."
He breathes out once more and stops when he sees the woman is covered in a layer of frost,"You won't be getting up from that."
He drops to the ground and moves towards her, his claws clicking over the hard surface of the floor,"I suppose I should just knock you out and immobilize you before I go back to my master."
He takes one more breath and the crystal on the end of his tail is filled with light before Empathy breathes out to flash freeze the woman in front of him. When he's done he places an ear against the skin covering her heart and listens carefully for a heartbeat. Upon hearing a barely audible beat he sighs,"Good. For a second I thought I froze her insides as well."
He spares one last glance at the woman before turning and flies back towards where Perseus is fighting the Angelus.
****
"Surrender!"
Perseus grits his teeth while dodging another blast of light,"F*** you! Hold still!"
He brings the collapsible blade up in an attempt to slice through the Angelus' right arm while dark energy crackles in his left palm. He makes a fist with the energy in the hollow of his hand and punches forward,"Bala!"
The Angelus is pushed back but not wounded by the attack while Perseus pants from the strain of using his limited power. Quickly wiping some sweat away he draws both his guns from his shadow and saturates them with the last remaining bits of Darkness power. Both glow a deep violet and he brings them up to block a light spear with the barrels,"Please let this work!"
The spear is dissolved and he rushes towards the light entity while yelling in his mind,"How much longer?!"
"ThreE miNuteS. We aLso neeD soMe of her Blood."
Perseus crashes into the Angelus with a shoulder tackle and concentrates the power in his guns to form two orbs floating a few millimeters in front of the ends. Quick as a thought he slashes both across the Angelus' chest and golden blood spills onto the floor before being consumed by the shadows. Perseus springs back when a blast of light nearly drains his guns dry and the two enter into a bizarre dance. Both weave around the other with the Angelus shattering her spears against Perseus' guns until his foot lashes out and sweeps her legs out from under her,"Gotcha!"
He traps her body between his knee and elbow to temporarily stun her before placing his left gun on her forehead,"Bang!"
A bolt of pure Darkness slams into her skull and forces her body through the stone floor of the cave while Perseus risks a Blink to the land on the edge of the hole,"You almost done?!"
He stares down into the abyss underneath the cave floor, trying to spot his opponent when the Darkness speaks up,"DonE."
He reaches into his shadow for the siphon when a blast of light slams into him. He screams and backpedals while the Darkness within him screams in pain. The cave is flooded with light that reflects off mirrors set up around the perimeter of the room while the Angelus rises into the air with ethereal grace,"A valiant attempt, scum. However, this game ends now!"
She lunges towards Perseus and only a half-hazard Blink saves him from the spear of light that pierces the rock where he was. He ends up over the abyss' entrance and lets himself fall while the Darkness surges back into him with its full power. Hell's Plating covers him while a carbon copy of the siphon appears in his hands, with white and silver replacing the purple and gold. He hovers at the entrance of the abyss while the Darkness physically manifests to suffocate the light trying to reach him,"You're right. This ends now."
He hefts the bronze staff over his shoulder like a baseball bat while the Angelus' eyes widen,"Impossible! You can't have!"
Perseus smiles behind the mask covering his lower face,"Believe it my dear. What's say we get to it?"
The two lurch forward and their respective elements surge towards the other, crashing like two great waves to cancel each other out and create a false twilight. Perseus' right hand strays to his hip and easily removes his left hand gun before he pulls the trigger,"Open wide, Angelus!"
The bursts of black from the gun barrel towards her and crack a hastily erected shield of light before Perseus breaks through it and his armored fist slams into her stomach. The Angelus' concentration wavers and her light dims before returning full power to launch Perseus back with a blast of light. Both get to their feet and growl before they slam into each other and the sea of power behind both causes the roof above them to be torn apart and show the dawn of a new day. The two explode into the open sky as streaks of white and black and slam into each other once more. Perseus grits his teeth and uses the staff connected to his siphon to force back the light blade the Angelus is using. He forces her back and goes on the offensive, swinging the heavy bronze in circles to repeatedly crash against a hasty shield projected by his opponent. The Outsider's mark on his right hand glows and covers his body in a yellow outline while the staff on his hands rotates even faster than before,"Fall!"
The force from the swings shatters the shield and pushes the woman down towards the ground before slamming the blunt end against her collarbone so he lands on her body with a stomp. She screams and blood trickles from Perseus' ear before he lifts his staff and slams it down on her again,"Shut up!"
She continues screaming and he repeatedly lifts his staff up before slamming it down again until her screams turn into whimpers. Just in time too as the rays of the sun start to dispel his armor and slowly heal the woman until the end of his bronze staff pierces her throat. She gurgles and claws at the bronze as the top opens into three panels to expose the crystal container held directly inside it. Perseus just watches the squirming woman with cold eyes,"You've had this coming for a long time, woman."
A pale glowing substance starts to fill the crystal container and Perseus squats down so his face is right over hers,"You've ruined the lives of so many, spiritually raped all your past hosts. There can be no penance for such an act."
The sun finally fully rises and burns away Perseus' armor to leave him in his jeans and sleeveless hoodie. He holds his left arm out as the flesh recedes from the bones as he activates Soul Touch,"Before your material existence ends though, you're going to tell me exactly where in Hell Jackie Estacado is."
She tries to move her head away but the skeletal hand holds her in place,"Struggling is futile at this point. At best you only have a quarter of your strength remaining, and very little of your essence left inside that body."
He glares down at her as his green eyes flicker yellow,"You've ruined all those lives. Now," and his voice turns demonic,"it's your turn to suffer."
He pulls his hand back and a pale shade follows out of the Angelus' head as she thrashes underneath him. The more he pulls the louder her screams become until he fully rips her soul out of the host's body and crushes her spectral neck to the point of nearly crushing her windpipe,"Now I haven't done this while trying to preserve a soul's self-awareness. See, I usually eat them in Thrafsma's form and assimilate them to increase my spiritual power."
He sighs and his right hand is cloaked in Darkness,"Try not to scream too loud."
His hand plunges into the soul's head and the Darkness ruts through her memories, searching for the one location Perseus needs to locate Jackie. After a minute it finds something and latches onto it before pulling itself out of its enemy's head and speaks to its host,"GoT it."
Perseus nods and the top of the siphon opens up,"You've served your purpose. Now join the rest of yourself in solitude."
The soul is sucked into the siphon to join its power before the top slides back into place and the sides close with a snapping sound. Perseus gazes at the staff for a moment before dropping it into his shadow and kneels next to the woman who was hosting the Angelus,"Hey," and he lightly pats her cheek,"hey!"
The woman groans and Perseus heals the wound left from the siphon's stab before she opens her eyes,"Jackie?"
Perseus shakes his head,"Sorry, I'm not my grandfather."
The woman's eyes are unfocused,"Wha?"
Perseus sighs and puts her to sleep before rolling her into his shadow,"Treat her gently. Even if she was once a host, now she's not."
He quickly heads back into the cave and is alone for a moment before Empathy flies into the room,"Well," and he glances up at the hole in the ceiling,"it looks like this was a civil discussion. Mine went down too easily."
Perseus holds Excalibur's hilt out,"Sorry. You can have a better fight next time you get out to stretch."
Empathy grumbles but returns to Perseus' through a now restored Excalibur and inserts himself back into his master's soul. A burst of heat announces Thrafsma's presence when he appears with a woman alongside him,"Catch."
He tosses a bracelet to his boss and Perseus gives him a questioning look,"The Witchblade's dormant state. It was trying to fully take over the woman next to me."
Perseus nods and doesn't question about the mask affixed to his partner's face, but decides to wait until they're alone to ask what its purpose is. Thrafsma wordlessly becomes a stream of flame that slams against Dyrnwyn's hilt to form the blade. Perseus feels the presence of his first partner click into place in his soul before looking up at the woman,"Sorry."
She screams as the floor gives way under her feet and she falls into his shadow. As soon as she's gone he stumbles forward with his legs nearly giving out,"Ugh! I think I might have light poisoning, and maybe sleep deprivation."
He bends over with his hands on his knees and coughs up a small amount of white energy before using magic to make the water in the air clean any remnants from his face. He slips into his hybrid form for the temporary energy boost and shuffles his way back into the main cavern. When he gets within eyesight the head of a Brotherhood member flies past him and June has both her swords ready to attack,"You get her?"
Perseus tiredly nods and asks,"What about you guys? You get Leo out, and find Calypso?"
She nods and helps her brother figure stand straight,"Yeah. Found her in a separate pit in case the Angelus needed a new host."
Perseus nods and the group of demigods plus Zoë and Alex, with the addition of Leo and Calypso, meet the two in the middle of the hewn room,"So...the job is done."
Perseus nods,"Yeah. I'll send you back to Olympus, and then I'm going home to sleep."
He turns to Annabeth,"When you see the gods, tell Artemis to bring my payment when she visits. She'll know what I mean."
Annabeth nods and Perseus claps his hands together, summoning the hellhounds they rode in on. The demigods quickly take their places and Perseus scratches Mrs. O'Leary behind her ears,"Take them to the throne room girl, and then go home and get some rest."
His pet gives him a sloppy kiss before the group vanishes in darkness and Perseus has the shadows swallow him up. Halfway through the brief trip to his house he passes out and feels the embrace of the Darkness,"You dId welL. Very welL, my HoSt. ResT anD whEn you AwaKen, yoUr poWer wilL haVe GroWn eVen MorE."